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If you wanted to run home after 6 months of not being "amazed and inspired" every day by your first job out of school (as other posts here on 🐠 have gone), I'd just shrug at your instagram-warped, young-person worldview and tell you to stop whining.
But I'd say 4 years is a good amount of time to say you gave NYC a chance. It's fucking hard. That city is a full time job, and not everyone loves fucking STRIVING all day every day.
Not that Im anything but a total stranger, but Id say try a similar job in another city...instead of going back to the hometown I mean. You must have wanted to get out of there (I can relate), it sounds like you just overshot it a little with NYC. Try LA, try Chicago...shit if you really want to retire at 25, try Portland. Chin up though---you're not doomed I promise.
NYC is not for everyone and/or may not be for every phase of your life. No shame in wanting to be closer to family and friends
If it makes you feel any better, most people I know have this feeling at least once a month. NYC is tough, and home is home. But just remember, you can’t get a burrito delivered to your door at 2am just any old place :)
I feel embarrassed to say that all I want to do is to go back to my home state and be with my parents and high school friends. Hoping that this feeling (which was not present throughout college) is just a phase....
Don’t let anybody make you feel like you couldn’t make it here. This place isn’t for everybody. If you don’t like it, that’s ok and doesn’t reflect poorly on you at all.
@VP1 - not being able to leave the city seems much more terrifying to me than being here for a few years and figuring out it’s not for me.
To me it’s the concentration of NYC that creates the hustle. Everyone competing for air and earth on a tiny island. We live and work on top of each other. Etc. The effect of that is a sort of mental and physical pressure. Personally, I love it, but then I’m from London which is very similar. I’ve never lived in LA, I’m sure it’s its own beast, but trust me, a subway, as great as subways are, does not make a city easy to live in.
180LA - imagine if all of LA operated with the intensity, competition and nastiness of Hollywood but with shitty weather and insane costs of living. That’s NYC.
Op- sometimes the trick to loving NYC is leaving it often enough. To miss it. To keep your perspective. To remind yourself why you came here. Try to get out a bit more for weekend, work trips, day trips whatever.
If you haven’t already, I recommend reading EB White’s Here is New York.
Putting in another plug for a smaller city... I’m in Chicago and every time I visit NYC I have fun but am so glad to come back here where everything isn’t so so difficult. But, four years is long enough and if you truly want to go home there’s no shame in that. You do you!
Kind of hard to have roommates when you have kids, and kind of hard to work from home when there is shitty weather considering we have shorty weather like 75% of the time.
I’m thinking Chicago or Minneapolis
Thanks everyone for the advice and encouragement. I posted originally post-anxiety attack after having not eaten all day or slept that much. I do freaking love NYC, I mean I've been here for 4 years. I'll definitely stick it out for another year (till my lease ends of course) and reassess where I am then. I just need to rediscover my passion for what I do and sense of ambition that brought me here in the first place.
OP - I don’t trust anybody who loves NYC all the time. If you don’t have the occasional breakdown or find yourself looking for jobs in another city in the middle of the night at least once a year there is something wrong with you.
Another great NYC essay is the one Colson Whitehead wrote after 9/11. Incredible.
NYC is not for everyone. You learn to love it or you just hate it. Nothing wrong in going somewhere you feel comfortable, can make a living and feel good about yourself and life. Trust me, you are not doomed and things can be better - just maybe not in NYC. Good luck in whatever you do and wherever you do it.
I miss New York like crazy but if it’s not working for you, there’s no reason to stay. Life is too short to keep doing what you hate.
LA is a harder city to live in than NY lol Everyone loves to talk about NY being the #1 hustle spot but that’s simply not true. You have a Subway system for crying out loud! So just to be clear , do not suggest to OP to come to Los Angeles because it’s by far a tougher spot to be in terms of work, people, etc.
Hey, good for you. 4 years is a great run. If you’re looking to get out, SF is a very easy city to move to from NYC. Your rent will go up a bit, but otherwise it’s an easy transition, and you can still work at some great places. Keep your chin up!