Being Happy and Making the Best Wherever You’re Planted
Opinion Advocates for ideas and draws conclusions based on the author/producer’s interpretation of facts and data.
By Bill Primavera
Way back in the Dark Ages when I was in my mid-20s and building a career in public relations, I had the opportunity to accept a marketing job with Polaroid Corporation, headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. Polaroid was the hottest company around prior to the digital age of photography.
What was not so hot to us was the weather, which the year I was there was one of the coldest on record.
Whenever I think back to having lived there, I get a psychological chill up my spine. The only thing chillier than the weather that winter was the reception I received from some of the co-workers in my department who seemed to resent a “New Yawker” (as they would pronounce it) coming into town acting like some kind of big “shat” (as they would also say, for “shot”).
While I’m making fun of the Bostonian accent, I can share a story, which my wife and I like to tell about that experience. When the movers from Boston arrived in a big truck to our Brooklyn Heights apartment, they informed us that they could not “pack,” after we had arranged for them to do all our packing. We were terribly upset until we figured out that what they were really saying, once our ears adjusted to their accent, was that they could not “park.”
Besides being cooly received by my co-workers, we felt just as uneasy in our home situation. We moved into a brand-new building, 12 stories high, to the top penthouse floor for a very reasonable rent, at least compared to New York City prices. We were the first residents of the building and were very alarmed when we got into our elevator and saw scratched into its wall, “Support mental health or I’ll kill you!”
Very soon, we had another problem when one other apartment on our floor was rented to two swinging airline stewardesses who were real party girls and would hold noisy parties every weekend. Rowdy guests would spill out into the hallway, disturbing our sleep.
Being New Yorkers, we handled it in a typical New York way – by calling the cops. In response to the cops showing up to quiet things down, one of the stewardesses sent a tough boyfriend over to bang on my door, demanding to face him “like a man.” I demurred saying I wasn’t dressed and didn’t want anything to do with him. I laugh now when I think of how masculine that must have sounded.
My employer’s headquarters in Cambridge was located across the Charles River from Boston. Since I chose to live in Boston proper, my daily commute involved climbing to an elevated train to a platform where I was convinced I would one day be blown away by the wind.
Then, once on the other side of the river, I had to take a brisk five-block walk to the office in the freezing weather.
Under these circumstances, with the cold weather and particularly the cold shoulder from some of my co-workers, not to mention the threat of the tough boyfriend of the stewardess, I was very unhappy. And while I decided to “soldier” through and “shoulder through” the best I could, I lasted only 11 months in the job as an unhappy camper before my wife and I decided to flee back to New York City.
But while there in that hostile environment, we developed survival mechanisms to cope with our situation. Primarily, we “did” everything there was to do, both in Boston and the surrounding area. We were probably as well-versed in the region’s attractions as any native was. Surprisingly, as I think about it, we traveled everywhere without a car, using public transportation.
It’s funny, but just the other day in remembering that unhappy experience, my wife and I concluded that, today, we could make a go of such a situation and be happy living anywhere.
What changed? I guess we did, relying on the quote of Abraham Lincoln saying that “most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” And we made up our minds to be happy.
Bill Primavera is a residential and commercial realtor associated with Coldwell Banker, as well as a publicist and journalist writing regularly as The Home Guru. For questions about home maintenance or to buy or sell a home, Bill can be e-mailed at Bill@PrimaveraRealEstate.com or called directly at 914-522-2076.
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