Why every high achiever comes to New York City
Welcome to NYC, the most yang place on earth.
As I’ve mentioned before, I work in New York, where everything is bustling and fast and everyone is always running around and trying to do six things at once. If you visit or live here, you quickly realize it’s like someone made a yang theme park. It’s a playground the young and the energized, which is probably why New Yorkers walk through Midtown like we’re in a pedestrian slalom race.
By this logic, it makes sense that New York is filled with bankers and high-powered business people and the restaurateurs. Since like attracts like and there’s already a strong yang culture, the yang folks attract more yang people, and then they attract even more yang people, and they all feed off of each other’s craziness and need for constant stimulation. (See: cocaine.)
Of course, there are a few big problems with everything here being so yang-ified.
The Yangs
Let’s say you’re one of the adrenaline junkies, and you make NYC your home. Even if you’re a high-performance person and you stay in great shape, yang overload means that at some point, you’ll be like a Yugo driving 90 mph for days at a time. After a while, your body just isn’t made to sustain constant partying and full-throttle intensity, and you’ll burn out.
The Yins
If you’re a super yin person living in New York, you may discover you get shouted down and run over by the yang folk pretty often. Even if you’re a good mix of yin and yang, this place can be flat-out overwhelming, so if you already trend yin, you might find New York isn’t right environment for you. Want to stroll and relax and feel normal about it? Try a change of scenery. Go to Arizona or Montana or Pennsylvania, or one of the places where it’s quieter and calmer and you can sit around and watch Judge Judy and relax and stretch out and no one’s going to shout at you about deadlines and ragers and CrossFit.
One Word: Balance
The key to living here is finding balance. That’s why smart yangs make time to get out of town and decompress. They go to their beach house or go camping in the woods or head somewhere quiet, and they get the hell out of dodge so they can actually wind down without having hundreds of other yangs shouting at them all the time. They learn to go easy on spicy foods, they meditate, they do yoga, or they go to acupuncture. And they make it a priority.
On the other hand, New York can be a godsend for some yins. Remember — people who are too yin just want to sit on the couch in the dark with the heat cranked all year round. New York may have a fortifying effect on these people, where the city’s yang energy can help strengthen and balance their systems.
You want to go free climbing or car racing or start building six startups? You’ll probably wind up here at some point. But if you do, look for the guys who are actually thriving, and find out how they unwind, because yang brother, you’re going to need it.
I’ll be posting about acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, and how it all fits into the real world every other Thursday. If you get a sec, recommend my posts by clicking the button below, follow me on Twitter, and check out my official site.
