Last week I finally took my vacation time off from work, and since I’m in this stage of transformation, I decided to take a little adventure to New York City!

I’ll throw in a few pictures in this post from my trip, but I mostly want to share the steps I took out of my comfort zone from this trip so my story fits with the general theme of my blog. I’ll soon post the rest of my photos on my Facebook page.

Anyways, NYC was amazing! I’m shocked about how much I enjoyed the behemoth metropolitan city with all it’s controlled chaos, but somehow I found order and structure that I felt more comfortable being in a packed subway than driving in Seattle. I still have a natural disdain for the east coast, but this trip definitely softens my attitude. But maybe all this is due to hanging out with one of the greatest people I know, Cubby!

Breaking Free.

I’ve been planning on visiting Cubby in NY for about a year now, but had been stalling for multiple of reasons, but mostly because I was intimidated by doing this alone and dealing with the many logistical details of planning a vacation. I finally committed myself to a date and as I got closer to leaving, I saw this a great opportunity to push my personal limits.

If you know me, I’m very conservative and I like to limit the variables in life. I want to maximize potential while still minimizing risk. While I think this method has been helpful in the past, I do know this has prevented me from a more abundant life; I’m off balance in this method towards relying on the familiar. This needs to change.

The Trip

I flew into NY on Saturday, and was greeted at the airport by Cubby, which I then got my first taste of riding the subway, which was surprising more spacious than I was expecting. As we were walking to his apartment, he mentioned how the new Spiderman movie is supposed to have a scene where Spiderman fights Rhino outside Cubby’s apartment. I then said that the movie came out last week, and we decided to go watch it that night (which was pretty awesome to watch Spiderman, which is based in NYC while I was in NYC). Before we went though, we stopped by the Shake Shack and this was my first food test of my plan to being open to new experiences. I decided to order the bacon cheeseburger without removing anything from the order, which included a house sauce and red peppers. I actually found neither one of those items that bad and the burger was great!

On Sunday Cubby asked me what I wanted to do and I told him that I’m not going to let my over-structured and reserved personality limit our possibilities, so I have no plans, he can go do what he thinks is fun and I’ll tag along. I soon paid for not planning ahead and we ended up covering the entire Manhattan island in a single day and walked over 17 miles… while I wore dress shoes!

For lunch we stopped at the famous Carnegie Deli and we got the turkey bacon sandwich, which basically is like stacking a footlong sub…vertically…

Stepping up to change

Monday we stopped by one of Cubby’s favorite restaurants, The Meatball Shop. I had a clear out: I could essentially order spaghetti with meatballs, which would be what I what normally would have resorted to, but instead I just gave Cubby my menu and told him to just order for me whatever he thinks I should try. That was that the moment of change where I had given up all my veto power and was completely defenseless. I was soon given a spicy pork meatball sandwich with spicy meat sauce, and it obviously was pretty good! The kicker was the brown sugar ice cream on snickerdoodles for dessert!

Later on that day, we visited the New York City Public Library and one of Cubby’s friends, Morgan, gave us a private tour! It was incredible!

The city where time is relative.

Tuesday we left the city and I got to hear Cubby speak at a middle school for Charity: Water, which I actually got to be of some use finally on this trip and I was videographer for the event.

Later on in the day, back at the apartment, we starting thinking of last things we could do before I leave the next day. Then, around 6:30pm, Cubby mentions that the Yankees play the Mets in a half hour. We then found tickets through Craigslist and were immediately out the door; another new experience for me in that this definitely would have been something I would have had to plan far in advance in order to do, rather than just putting the plan together spontaneously. We found a guy who got called into work and was selling his tickets that retailed for $50 for $30. We got to our seats at the bottom of the 2nd inning, just in time to watch Jeter and the Yankees get owned by the Mets in what should be Jeter’s final Subway Series from our seats on the 200 level.

The Finale

My two biggest challenges came on the day I left. In the spirit of pushing my boundaries, I agreed to go to a Thai restaurant and again let Cubby order for me. I then tried Chicken Pad Thai for the first time, and I didn’t die! It definitely will be a while before I’m comfortable with it, but at least I know I have a foot in the door of Asian cuisine.

Since Cubby was in the office that day, I got to try using the subway while flying solo. It was a little unnerving at first, but it was a fun little adventure where I rode the subway for about 45 mins, getting off at the wrong stop, and then missing the right stop afterwards. But I was then informed by a kind stranger that my mistake actually worked to my favor in that I could then take the metro bus into the airport instead of paying an additional fee to take the airtrain like I had planned.

Conclusion

So ya, that was a very time-conscious version of my story, but I wanted to have some sort of hope of an convenient read.

That was an adventure I won’t ever forget, I hope I can carry the lessons I learned there with me in the future and build on them. I want this to be a pillar I can lean back on to reassure myself in times where I doubt my ability to move forward, because this trip brought out a different side of me that I haven’t seen before, and I liked it. I don’t have to remain who I’ve been, I’m a work in progress not a static in time. I can’t wait for my next adventure and the lessons I will learn from it!

I want to thank Cubby for being a fantastic host, and for being there to help me out of my protective shell and showing me how to have incredible fun! You are the best!

Also thanks to FedEx and JetBlue, for allowing me to fly out to NYC on a great discount (lets just say that if I took a cab from JFK to Brooklyn, it would have cost as much as my roundtrip ticket from Seattle to NYC).

#AdventureIsOutThere!!

—Grant X.
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Currently reading:

“Winning With People” – John Maxwell
“Boundaries” – Henry Cloud

Life verse: “But a generous man devises generous things and by his generosity he will stand.” -Isaiah 32:8

Life Mission Statement: To be intentionally focused on providing opportunity and adding value to others.