I recently had, what I first thought as, the unfortunate pleasure to ride the subway with a crazy homeless man. I was on my way to teach a yoga class early one morning, listening to my iPod, trying to wake up, thinking about how my class would go when this old, rotund guy in patched up overalls a la Ragtime starts belting out “New York, New York.” At first I did what any New Yorker would do and rolled my eyes at him—he was scream-singing it! Even though I was wearing those earbuds that you have to insert INTO your ears, I could still hear him crystal clear. That’s how loud he was. I didn’t want to make myself deaf by trying to turn up the volume on my electronic device, so I tried to ignore the situation.
But then he got to the part that goes “If I can make it here, I’ll make it anywhere” and I couldn’t help but smile. It inspired so much hope in me. I mean, taking the song at face value, yeah, living in New York is rough—if you can figure out how to make life work here, you can pretty much go and live anywhere. But I kept thinking about the lyrics to the song and realized that this guy, screaming this song wildly out of key—he’s making it, in his own way. He’s as happy as a clam singing to strangers in a subway car about the city that he lives in. And that’s when I realized that we are all are making it. Even trying to make it, we’re making it. Just going about our day, trying to attain whatever goal it is, be it big like a career change, a home change, or small, like just going to the grocery store to get some food to make dinner. So next time you feel like you’re struggling with something or frustrated that it’s taking you longer than you expected to reach a certain goal, just remember that in that moment you are still making it, you are on your way.
Once I thought about that, I realized that it was pretty much the perfect way to start my day so I turned off my iPod and listened to him until he got off—at Bedford Ave! Hopefully he inspired a couple more people in Williamsburg that day…
