For the last few days, the absence of bar studying has left a void in my stress-life. I have more than filled it by worrying about my New York apartment.
I have one, a New York apartment. My lease begins on September 2 and I will move in on September 3. This means that for one day, I will have legal possession of an apartment in a very nice location in Manhattan without actually living there. The proverbial ink is still wet on my bar exam, and I'm already living extravagently (for one day at least).
The apartment is adorable; the proximities to Husband's work, the Central Park, and the subways couldn't be better; the ward is fabulous; the landlord is a peach; the rent is (slightly) less than I expected; and we will have a dishwasher. But I still wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of night, convinced that I picked the wrong apartment.
When I whine to friends and family about my worries, they usually repond by saying, "so what if you picked the wrong apartment? There's nothing you can do about it now." Actually, there's one thing I can do about it now: I can stress about it. And when my monthly rent costs roughly the same amount of money as my wedding, I have a right. See, there were two really great apartments, and they were both good for different reasons. Now that I've committed to one of them, all I can think about are the reasons I liked the other one. I think this is called the paradox of choice, and I think I'd better get over it if I'm planning to live in New York City. If there's one thing New York has, it's options.
2 comments:
You should read the book called the Paradox of Choice because it actually explains how to overcome that kind of thing. The idea is, you set a minimum standard that you will accept and you choose the first thing you find that meets your standard - and then you don't worry about whether the thing you chose is the best thing that exists in the entire world. In the words of Kip Dynamite, "Napoleon, like anyone can even know that."
Having said that, when I first moved to Kirkland, I had narrowed my choices down to two apartments and ended up choosing one of them. And to this day, every time I drive past the one I didn't choose, I still wonder if that one would have been better.
Oh, I can so relate to this post. I am much too good at stressing over things I can't change. But sometimes stress can be productive, I like to think. Otherwise why would I engage in it so often?
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