Moving Day
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/20889
It’s May 1, 1820 and you’re in Brooklyn. Several boxes are in your hands as you prepare to move to your new apartment. Now just mentioning that may already bring a wave of anxiety; anyone that has ever moved knows the stress that comes with Moving Day. Now imagine all the stress of your family moving, and multiply it by everyone in Brooklyn.
By 1820 Brooklyn New York had declared May 1 to be Moving Day. All leases would end and every person moving would make their way to their new apartment. Reading articles that reference comics from that time, you can see how utterly chaotic it was. Any equipment for rent like moving vans would all raise their prices, resulting in people wheelbarrowing their belongings across town.
"Most people waited until the last minute to move causing May 1 to erupt into a mass exodus of carts and horses and wheelbarrows pushed down busy Brooklyn streets as people frantically tried to get to their new home."
Who thought this was a good idea!?
It doesn’t appear to have been a successful venture and yet Moving Day continued through the start of World War II. If you need a reminder, that was in 1939 which means for 119 years moving on May 1 was a thing. Maybe in 1820 there were reasons that made moving all at once the best choice, but it is very unlikely that stayed true through all the changes that occurred the century to follow. Yet nobody made the decision to stop Moving Day, a world event forced the shift.
This is something we all experienced with the pandemic; many of us had habits and traditions that were on autopilot (like commuting to work for several hours a day) and the pandemic helped us take a step back and get some perspective. We all asked the question - is this worth it? Should my schedule be so busy? I kinda like doing puzzles… In shifts like this, change can be the best thing that ever happened to us, so why wait for a world event?
While some traditions are worth preserving, there are many things in life that we continue doing simply because that’s the way it’s been done before. The New Year is a great time to stop and analyze some of the things in your life. Ask the question - Is this is a good idea? Is there a better way we haven’t thought of yet? We don’t need to change everything, but maybe that thing that is utter chaos? Maybe this is the year we mix that up.
