Last stop, Nicetown.

Bad day at the office

Nicetown, PA

For the past year, I've been schlepping to a job in a shithole of a place called, absurdly enough, Nicetown. And I'm here to tell you that it is one of the most despicable shitholes on the planet. Today is my last day on the job in this dump, a day I would like to commemorate with this photo, which was taken on my very first trip to this barbed wired wasteland, once home to the now abandoned Tastycake factory. You see, Nicetown is no place for humans, animals, or even weeds. Or chocolate covered krimpets, apparently. Mannequin heads, however, they seem to do okay.

I am leaving my job, once and for all. And from this day forward, I vow to myself and to the world, that I will never ever never work in an office again for as long as I live. It's that simple.

Always desperate for the silver lining, it occurred to me recently that maybe Nicetown is actually the perfect last stop on my stupid resume, which I will now burn, for it lists a string of PR jobs, where I floated from one circus to another, wore many masks, played the parts well enough, as woefully miscast and miserable as I was. Let's see... there was corporate cubical hell, government dog and pony show hell, elitist academic hell, and finally the mind-numbing nonsense of non-profit hell.

In some ways, Nicetown, in all it's rusted rancid rot, epitomises the feeling you get when your soul is stuck, you feel completely lost and there is no joy or beauty on the horizon. So, I'm beginning to realize that Nicetown was the just the right backdrop, the perfect springboard off which to launch a personal transformation. At least for me, there's no urgency to move, change, and grow when I'm coasting along in beautiful surroundings. And I take comfort knowing that as I'm leaving Nicetown behind, things can only get better.

In preparation for my departure, my boss, very concerned that I will be homeless in a matter of weeks, has asked on several occasions, " Will you be able to feed yourself? How will you live?" Now, I'm well trained to handle this belittling brand of maternal skepticism, which would usually leave me feeling enraged and insulted. But instead, I took down the last piece of paper from my office cork board, handed it to her and said, "This is how." On it was written the following quote:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raining in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidence and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.

-- W.H. Murray

It seems I'm meant to heed these instructions as they've been following me around these last few months. I found them in my grandmother's notebook just after she passed away. And when I began my journey to yoga camp in Bali, I first stopped in LA , where on my way to a yoga class there I came across a vintage flea market where there, amid bric-a-brac, Elivs posters, poodle figurines, and beat up barcaloungers, on a gigantic dry erase board were the words from this very same quote.

I took a picture, for posterity.

And because I was sure no one would believe me. But wait, the magic continues: when I arrived in Bali, this same quote was written on the inside of our nifty little yoga teacher training manuals, meant as a mantra of sorts. It seems there truly are no coincidences.

But I've resisted this quote and its radical suggestion that when you follow your bliss, all the details fall miraculously into place. I have not been conditioned to accept the idea that things "just happen", that opportunities just present themselves, and problems solve themselves, deus ex machina-style. I come from the ever self-affirming "Money doesn't grow on trees", "Don't come cryin to me" and "Let's see you pull this one off, Miss Bigshit" school of hard knocks.

But the practice of yoga has insisted that I reconsider this notion of divine providence, of the universe providing abundantly when you're "in the flow" -- that is, not resisting who you are, offering compassion to yourself and others, being grateful for every detail of your life, breathing, meditating, keeping your mind peaceful and your heart open.

Much much easier said than done. We humans are much more inclined to sit back is smug judgement, wallow in our mysterious darkness, indulge our self-pity, cynicism, anger-- pick your poison. But the sentiment that things and people and opportunities literally fall from the sky when you're doing what you love and using your talents for a greater good does truly happen, and not just out of sheer luck and good timing. You do have to do a bit of work to surrender your past for the sake of possibility. And that's part of what yoga helps us to shed, day by day, little by little. But once you start peeling away the layers of your self that are no longer serving your higher purpose, you'll start to find some more space in your life for rich and fulfilling things to take root. You'll start to get unstuck.

And getting unstuck is contagious. Your energy and new found ease with who you are is powerful. People will notice. People who know you might be confused ( You? Teach yoga?). Your family won't know what the hell is going on ( Whaddya mean you don't eat meat?). And you will notice that you've loosened your grip on the life you thought you should be living, and instead you're just being who you are, authentically navigating your life's course with purpose, ease, and joy. I can hear my mother now, " Enough with the happy horseshit, what the hell are you gonna live on?"

This is not a plea for you all to quit your jobs and become yoga teachers (though I highly recommend it) and live on a wing and a prayer, planning for nothing, hoping for everything. It's just about giving yourself permission to experience another dimension of you, one that may have been hidden from view, one that has not been able to breathe. Probably because you are suffocating it out of fear, practicality, comfort, or a stack of unpaid bills. The practice of yoga, by uniting body and mind, helps us to move bravely into the world, because we feel more whole, more intact. The mind isn't racing uncontrollably, the body feels calm and strong and together they can provide a happy home for the soul that needs a bright, open space in which to be honored and nourished.

As for Nicetown, if you're ever in need of a place to shake you up and spit you out, to fuel your wanderlust such that you end up half way around the world searching for your higher self on a yoga mat, maybe you should make it your next stop. I hear there's a job opening -- corner office, with bars on the windows.

It's so good to be free.