When I was living in Oakland, before moving to New York, one of the many ways I romanticized the East Coast was the earlier timezone. Being a full-time artist in my 20’s in California meant that there was little to no incentive for me to wake up before 10am, which is 1pm EST. By the time I was up and ready, people on the other side of the country were already wrapping up their days. Meanwhile, I was hungry for the hustle but felt like I kept coming to the table late. To be an East Coaster was to be among the early birds, to leave behind a life of slacking-by-nature.
These days I feel like I’ve eaten myself sick. The hustle leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I want nothing more than to fall into a food coma. I’ve begun my transition back to California with a short stint in the Bay, and two mornings in I already feel like I’m at a crossroads – do I rise with the sun in the way that I was unable/unwilling to as my decade-ago self, or do I shed the burden of being three hours ahead and allow myself to be swallowed by the Pacific Standard? I am abhorred by the notion of CEO’s and CEO-wannabes who wake up at 5am just to have mornings to themselves, but what I like about life in EST is that I can sample that, even at 8am. But the past two mornings in California, despite getting up earlier than normal, I open my eyes to the pressure to check my texts and emails to see what East Coast concerns are left pending for me.
I learned long ago that so much of life is about managing expectations, and I’ve witnessed so many people who have managed those expectations of them such that they are constantly catching up. Common knowledge says that the way to escape that is to get head starts when you can. But what if I just stopped running the rat-race? What wild exists for me in the detours?