Daquan Johnson

Prof. Penaz

ENG 2150

05/18/09

May 19, 2009

The Truth about Success

            What is the key to success? Can one really narrow it down to a single technique used to be successful? When I ask people what they think is the key to success is most people say determination without giving it a second thought. Determination can’t be the only key that opens the door to success. Though being determined opens up one of the locks to this door, I believe there is one more lock that needs to be unlocked. That lock can be unlocked by knowing the right people.

Before telling you how who you know and determination can lead to success, I should verify what success is. To be successful means a wide variety of things to different people.  For some people the amount of money you make defines your success. For others being successful has to do with having a loving family, having a career that is fun, or having a title. I believe to be successful is to be happy; however, there are many things that go into defining happiness. To name a few, being happy is to be independent, having true friendships, a loving family, and being financially secure.

The first step to being successful, especially in a Place like New York City, is determination. It can be seen as a major building block to being successful. I believe making it in New York City is the ultimate success. Frank Sinatra once said “If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere.” Yes, frank Sinatra’s statement is just an opinion, but it’s an opinion that is shared by lots of people. This is a common opinion because nothing in New York City is given freely. You either have to earn it or you have to go out and take it. Since hard work is just a building block, it is not enough alone to facilitate success. Along with determination, one must also have a strong work ethic. These two qualities, determination and work ethics, are essential to success. Most successful people are known for having unique personalities as well as some sort of leadership quality that allows them to rise to the top. In addition to being determined, their leadership qualities allow them to execute their plans to success.

Conversely to what degree can one say determination play a role in making success possible? It may be argued that it is solely who you know that determines whether one is successful or not. In fact, there are many average workers with no ambition and all the connections in the world that are not successful. This can be to fact that they don’t know the right people. While having connections can be the difference between being a minimum wage worker or another Bill Gates, hard work is important to being successful. Relying on other people to get you into a good job is in all reality the loser’s road. Not only are you cheating your employer, but you’re also cheating yourself. It’s practically impossible to truly understand what it takes to be successful. Therefore if you were to lose that job you would have no idea how to pick yourself back up. Success is much more rewarding and self gratifying when you can say you worked hard to get where you are. When you work for things it seems to hold a higher value to you. By getting an education and working hard to obtain your success you’ll learn the true value of the money you earned in the process.

Daquan Johnson

Eng 2150

May 12, 2009

Evaluative Essay

Throughout life one learns how to be successful by watching what other people did to become successful. I agree with Jonathan Field’s blog about the limitations that come with modeling oneself after a “successful” person. Modeling a person’s behaviors and responses may be an easy thing to do, but stepping into that model is definitely hard being that a person’s personality is developed through past experiences. I believe that instead of trying to completely model ourselves after successful people, we should see what that person did right and what s/he did wrong and learn from them. This is hard being that there is a fine line between modeling ourselves after someone and emulating them. In Fields blog he poses questions to the readers to make them think about what s/he just read. This style of writing was able to pull me in deeper, and leave me wanting more of his thoughts on the issue of emulators believing they’re actually modeling themselves after someone else.  Another thing I liked about this blog is the way Fields ended the blog. “So, study the greats, but don’t surrender the quest to cultivate your own intelligent processes to often-fabricated half-pieces of the puzzle divined by reverse-engineering someone else’s journey.” This can be considered a quote to live ones life by.

http://www.jonathanfields.com/blog/model-this/

Daquan Johnson

Prof. Penaz

May 4, 2009

Arteries of the City

Trying to narrow a search for something that is truly New York is a difficult task. This is because the city is a very big and diverse place. So what can we say is actually New York? Is it the Italian immigrant owned restaurant, the Chinese restaurants on every block, maybe it’s the great jumble of people in Time Square? All of these things are apart of New York, but they aren’t quintessentially New York.

As a lifetime citizen of “The Big Apple” I found that the most unique thing about New York City is that it truly never sleeps. Another fact about New York City is that it is monopolistic in nature. For those that don’t know a monopoly occurs when a specific enterprise has ample control over a particular product or service, and is able to notably determine the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it. New York can be seen as a monopoly because of it dominance in the world financial market. While thinking of New York in this manner I realized that there is actually a NYC based company that is similar characteristically. The company that comes to mind is the Metropolitan Transit Authority, known in New York as the MTA.

New York City Transit started out with a 12 seated horse-drawn carriage that ran from Battery to Bleeker Street. Roughly three decades later (in 1855) there were nearly 600 “omnibuses” running 27 routes in Manhattan, and horse-drawn carriages ran on multiple avenues such as Third, Fourth, Sixth, and Eighth Avenues. The elevated train had also been put into service. This service rapidly expanded and dominated rapid transportation for many years to come. By the end of the century the horse drawn carriages were replaced by trolley buses. 60 years later, 1960, trolleys were completely replaced by motor buses. In the nineteenth the people witnessed New York City transit go from being privately owned by multiple companies such as The Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), The Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT), and The Independent Rapid Transit Railroad (IND), to being owned by a sole company in 1953. This company was initially called the New York City Transit Authority. It’s now called the MTA (the Metropolitan Transit Authority) New York City Transit. The MTA now controls New York City’s buses, trains, bridges, and tunnels.

Your probably wondering how this leads to the Metropolitan Transit Authority being compared to New York’s characteristics. To answer that question shortly, the Metropolitan Transit Authority executed a gracious takeover of its market just like New York City took control of the financial market. Honestly it’s safe to say that the Metropolitan Transit Authority is actually more powerful than New York City’s world financial market. It is safe to say this because New York City’s economy and reputation as “The City That Never Sleeps” is in the hands of the Metropolitan Transit Authority. In December of 2005, MTA workers decided to go on strike on strike. According to CNN the TWU strike, which lasted three days, cost the city an estimated one billion dollars. The fact that the MTA strike occurred during the Christmas season and was able to bring the city to its knees is good enough reason to acknowledge the MTA’s economic influence in the City. Another example of the Metropolitan Transit Authority’s monopolistic economic influence on the city is the way in which they (the MTA) can set the fares as high as they want. Every two to three years the MTA raises the fares by up to thirty five percent. The next fare rise, which is scheduled to go into effect on May 31, 2009, is going up twenty five percent, and the thirty day unlimited pass is increasing twenty two dollars

When it comes to New York City being “The City That Never Sleeps”, the Metropolitan Transit Authority can take credit for that also. It’s the only public transportation company that stays open 24 hour a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year.  The MTA truly never sleeps. Consistent traveling methods help the city maintain its status as “The City That Never Sleeps”. If public transportation was to stop running at a certain time, that would be like putting a curfew on all the people that don’t drive automobiles regularly.

The New York City MTA is so important to the livelihood of the city that it can be considered the arteries of the city. Like arteries deliver oxygenated blood throughout our bodies, the MTA of New York City delivers people to places in the city where they are much needed. As stated earlier, without the MTA New York City wouldn’t be so different from any other big city in America.

     Why do we walk? The act of walking has a diversity of purposes for people. Some people walk to get to a destination, some people walk for exercise, and some walk just to take in the sights. I on the other hand like to walk mostly when there’s something disturbing my mental stability.

     Walking to clear my mind is actually a relatively new ordeal for me. I’ve only been clearing my mind by walking for roughly three years. I started out walking aimlessly, usually during or after sunset. Every now and again I might find myself going for a walk around sunrise. Everyone that walks, with or without a purpose, knows that timing is the key to the success of the walk. Attempting to walk on 42^{nd street during rush hour isn’t exactly the best time or the best place to clear your mind, unless you’re the type that needs noise to help process the mutinous thoughts that disrupts your train of thought.}

     After walking aimlessly throughout Manhattan all of five times I found that walking up Sixth Avenue, known to tourist as the Avenue of the Americas, from 34th street until 59th street, and then walking west alongside central park is my most relaxing route in Manhattan. When I walk this route it seems like the scenery is an outward representation of the change of mind states I go through. Like my surroundings, my mind goes from being crowded to what I could consider peaceful for the most part.

     When walking this same route for the purposes of writing a paper, it seemed to lose its glamour to me. I noticed things that I’ve never noticed before, or maybe I just tolerated the routes flaws because of what it did for me in the long run. When I started my mile hike on 34th street Herald Square I quickly realized that this was going to be a different experience than the one I frequently turned to the route for.

     At the beginning of my journey I notice a contradictive bulletin ad. On the top there’s an ad for KFC, and directly under it (connected) is a New York Sports Club ad. After seeing that I decided to look for any other ads that were just as funny, but the only other bulletin I saw is that of a Victoria Secret model in her bra. When I set out on my journey I heard a bell sounding. As many times that I’ve taken this route I didn’t know where it was coming from. As I crossed the street I felt like a face in the crowd, but as I moved away from Herald Square the crowd started to lessen. I guess it was because everyone was going into Mc. Donald’s, which happened to be right next door to a health food store.

     From 36th street until 39th street the stores seemed to have been built by business men that didn’t know much about the business portion of their titles. The stores were built in clusters. I saw stores selling the exact same things right next to each other. For these three blocks the most interesting things I saw were a corner store and a residential building with a “Now Renting” sign. The second best part of this excursion comes up at 40th street. This is where Bryant Park is located. I see Bryant Park as a prelude to the ultimate prize which is Central park. The trees and grass help you escape from the harsh realities of life in the city. Walking right across the street from the park is the HBO building, and right behind that building is the CUNY building. Looking at it in the day time I noticed that it’s actually an oddly shaped building. It starts out going straight down and then at the bottom it puffs out like a blossomed rose.

     For the next couple of streets I paid attention to the buildings. The buildings were tall and seemed to be made out of marble. The windows were heavily tinted and stretched from floor to ceiling. While looking at these buildings I couldn’t help but wonder what went on behind the mirror like windows. This sense of wonder made these buildings seem like they were inhabited by important people. When I reached 48th street I noticed a thermostat across the street. The thermostat read that the temperature was as low as the speed limit, 30 degrees. On 50th street I walked by the Radio City Music Hall. I was first alerted that I was passing a famous New York landmark by the constant flashing and clicking of the tourists’ cameras. Another thing I noticed was that the amount of yellow taxis doubled, and the tourist buses started to drive by. From here I could actually see central park in the near distance. I instantly felt anxious. Not only couldn’t I wait to reach the park, but I also knew the end was near for this arctic voyage.

     When I reach central park the first thing I notice is the strong smell of horse droppings. After getting over the smell I looked up. When I looked up I saw three men on horses. Two of the horse men were identified as Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin. After looking at these I look across the street. The two different sides of the streets seem to stand for the two different worlds. On one side of the street there are hotels and expensive cars. On the park side there are horses, trees, and bicyclist. Honestly the sight of Central Park is what makes this a New York walk. I haven’t been to many different places outside of New York, but there isnt anything quite like Central Park. You can find parks surrounded by skyscrapers anywhere, but what makes Central Park, and Bryant Park for that matter, different from other places is the variety of people that inhabit these places.

     After walking this walk during the day time and with a clear mind I’ve come to find that my original suspicion was true. This was a wholly different experience for me. I saw things that I never saw before and I actually paid attention to the buildings I passed. Now that I’ve seen my walking route in a different light I think I’ll be trying to find a different route to help ease my mind it seems like the only part that actually helps is all the way towards the end of the route. If it was more towards the middle and lasted until the end it would be a great route, but sadly it isn’t. One thing this route did show me was how diverse New York really is. Not only diverse but also how tolerant we New Yorkers are. I saw people of different ages, religions, ethnicities, sexes, and economic standings sociallizing as if they werent at all different. Though this walk didn’t have the same effects on me like it has in the past, it had a more profound effect on me this time. I say this because not only did it open my eyes to the things we New Yorkers experience everyday, but it also made me proud to have been born and raised in New York City!

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