You Can’t Connect the Dots Looking Forward, You Can Only Connect Them Looking Back
What to do when everything you planned goes wrong
I remember tearing a page out of my journal and sketching out the Brooklyn Bridge with the Manhattan skyline in the distance. On the back of it I wrote “I will be living in New York City by July 10th, I will be living near Central Park.” I signed it and put the date, April 12, 2017. I was manifesting this wild dream with no clue that it would become reality.
It was my third year of college at the University of Florida and got it in my head that I wanted to live and work in New York City. I’ve always been fascinated by how it represents an experiment of how thousands of different people can live together in (somewhat) harmony. I love how it rises vertically into the air and also extends deep into the cavernous subways. I love learning how it was built and how it remains in a constant state of change.
Determined to make it happen, I stuffed my head in the LinkedIn rabbit hole scouring for internships and combing Facebook Marketplace for rooms to sublease.
After dozens of applications, somehow a month later I had secured an internship at a small marketing agency and an apartment (in Washington Heights). My start date was July 10th.
Elated, I packed my stuff and moved to New York. My sister came to help settle me in and we blasted Taylor Swift’s “Welcome to New York” in my closet-sized room with no AC in the middle of summer.
But sometimes even our best-laid plans unravel before our eyes. Three days before my start date, I checked my email on the train:
My heart sank. They didn’t even have the decency to call me, they sent an email at 10:56 pm on a Friday.
While their reason for canceling didn’t make sense to me, people told me to fight it. Someone even told me I could take legal action. I suppose I could have, but something in my gut told me that if they were the type of company that would let down a future employee right after they moved accross the country… they weren’t people I’d want to work with. None of us suspected they had just given me a gift…
Perspective turns curses turn into blessings
Even though I hadn’t realized it yet, the internship getting canceled was the best thing that could have happened to me. In life, sometimes when we reach a roadblock it’s a chance to create new opportunities for ourselves.
The heaviness of disappointment turned into urgency and determination of finding something else and try to stay in the city. Without work, my money would dry up in about two weeks, so I gave myself a week to find another gig. I went back to LinkedIn, called up friends, and put out feelers for internships.
Days went by and I heard nothing but crickets and cab horns. I even packed one of my suitcases with all the winter clothes I assumed I wouldn’t get to wear, and gave it to my sister to take back home so I wouldn’t have to deal with it.
It was raining as we stood in front of Grand Central Station on 42nd street under the Park Avenue Bridge waiting for her Uber ride to the airport. She took my suitcase, wished me luck, and left.
In a depressed mood, I walked over to Grand Central Station and slumped on the steps next to the Apple Store on the concourse, burying my head in my hands. I watched the passengers and tourists come and go. It looked like they all had a purpose, a place to be, and I had none.
Ten minutes hadn’t even passed when my phone rang. It was one of my friends I’d called about potential jobs. “Maria, I talked with my boss and he wants to interview you. I’m going on maternity leave soon and maybe you could fill in while I’m gone. Can you come for an interview tomorrow?”
It was as if gloomy clouds parted away and the sun shone through. I leaped off the steps with a big smile on my face. Hope was restored.
Suddenly I remembered a video of Steve Jobs saying, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking back.”
A wave of optimism and gratitude hit me. Suddenly I was glad my other internship got canceled. It was all meant to be this way. Sometimes you have to have a little faith that life’s obstacles have a purpose. Rejections are opportunities for redirection.
When my friend texted me the address of the office for the interview, I couldn’t help but smile. 42nd Street and Park Ave. The exact spot we had stood in the rain just minutes before. I’d been standing right next to my potential new office and didn’t even know it.
My celebratory mood got interrupted by a sudden thought, “Crap. My suitcase.” If there was a chance I could get the job and stay, I was taking it. For that, I’d need my winter clothes back. For that, I had to chase down my sister.
I raced to the metro and took the line to La Guardia. My phone blew up with messages from her saying there was no way I’d make it in time. But I had to try. Finally, my train arrived and I sprinted through the terminals to find a very frazzled and stressed sister. She threw the luggage into my hands, gave me a half hug, and ran off to the security checkpoint with only 15 minutes to spare before her flight.
When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. –Paulo Coelho
By the end of the interview, I had a job at Bloomberg LP. A full-time contractor role for six months.
My desk was on the 19th floor with views of the Park Ave bridge and Grand Central Station. On the 13th floor AKA “The Pantry” the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with snacks that appeared to re-stock themselves out of thin air.
I had to learn the BB language for the Bloomberg Terminal, a system where you operate the computer with a series of code commands from a colorful keyboard. My mind was blown when I learned I could send a code with a ticket request to mystery people to make the vent above my desk not so cold. And how my coworkers had an ongoing secret chat with the kitchen to find out what the soup of the day was.
I had never worked in an office before (and since then, never have). It was pretty unbelievable that my first office had a view of the Chrysler Building and I could read the time from the Grand Central Station clock when I looked to the right of my computer.
On occasion, I’d go to the main Bloomberg office, where I’d spot Mike Bloomberg, the former 3 x Mayor of New York City and the founder of Bloomberg LP, just chatting with employees at the coffee bar. I also loved passing the newsroom where you could see the live news recordings happening in real-time. I pinched myself at how I ended up being there.
Luck, coincidence, or fate?
After a few weeks though, I was miserable at my shared apartment with no AC and strange roommates, so I took to Craigslist to find something else.
Believe it or not, two days later I moved into an apartment two blocks from Central Park West. It was an elderly lady who had a spare room and rented it out to me. The two things I’d written in my journal came true, but not in the way I expected.
Living in New York is not a walk in the park. City life is hard and I had to learn and adapt. Like when it dawned on me that small conveniences like in-house laundry were nonexistent. Or how I was fooled by the excitement of seeing an empty subway car only to discover its AC was broken. Or walking down the streets in the middle of August and feeling the gross mystery drops of window AC units plop on your head.
All in all, my time in New York ended up being one of the most creative and growth-filled periods of my life where my solitude in the big city harbored a state of constant reflection, observation, learning, and independence.
Now, not every time you sketch out your dreams in a notebook, will they come true. I wouldn’t call it luck and it’s not a coincidence. It was proof to me that when you want something and it’s truly meant for you, the universe will conspire to help you achieve it. I believe a lot of it comes down to the mindset you keep, and the decisions that led you to that point in the first place, perhaps years in the making.
That journal page of the Brooklyn Bridge sketch is taped on the wall next to my desk. It’s a reminder that risk-taking is defined as a willingness to try something knowing that it might not come to fruition. Life is about putting ourselves in situations that might not be the most comfortable, but where growth can happen if you let it.
Life has a habit of unraveling itself, even if not in the ways you expect. It isn’t about waiting for things to happen to you, sometimes YOU have to happen to life. It may not make sense yet, but one day it will.
PS: On the day I moved to the Upper West Side, I went out for a run in Central Park and spotted this sign.