Grass is always greener on other side
We always think that we would be happier in a different set of circumstances which generally implies that we are not contended with our present conditions. We keep cribbing about our job conditions saying that it is tedious, highly demanding, boss is not cooperative etc.; we look at some businessmen and think they are happier, they don’t have bosses, they can come and go any time; the neighbors’ wife is better-looking, she is more efficient, and his kids are more intelligent; in short when we compare our situations to other’s we feel repentant for self. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. The biggest trouble of mind is turning away from reality. In our anxiousness we get engrossed with thoughts of a different life, perhaps a better life somewhere else.
When problems occur in our life, we are taken over by envy, believing that other people have better things, they are happier than us and this thought makes us anxious. We want everything good, and this ‘good’ is an illusion, it is persecuted by the belief that we have so little. We are taken over by greed, wanting more and more and more, feeling that what we have cannot ever be enough. Friends, by denying the goodness of our very own lives, we believe that we have nothing good to work with, this thought reduces the capacity to work with our strengths and the opportunities. This is where we lose focus, self-confidence and hope.
Robert Fulghum, author of that classic book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” put it this way: “The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence. No, not at all. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you are.” The book is about our adult-world. The information which we receive corrupts our mind and there is very little educational value in what is disguised as education and sold to us. In reality, most of what we need to know to live good lives was already taught to us when we were in kindergarten. That, and only that is education. Everything else is a sales pitch. Isn’t it true?
We often say that we don’t know what it is that we are missing until it’s gone. We don’t realize how good our life was during our school days, until we are thrown into the workforce, and our parents cut us off our pocket money. We don’t come to understand how nice our childhood friends were until we meet shrewd people in later part of life, we don’t appreciate importance of a people until they leave us.
I think, the problem with having choices is that we become restless. We can’t settle for what we already have or be satisfied with what we’ve got because we will always be wondering about the next big thing. It’s called “the grass is always greener” syndrome. We think someone else is having a better time elsewhere. We make ourselves miserable by constantly thinking about the unknown in an endless quest to find happiness. We lie awake at night torturing ourselves over what we should do next, wondering if we’re missing out on something big. We feel we’re wasting our lives if we’re not doing something more important, and we are unable to define the ‘important’.
Mindfulness helps you to appreciate life as it happens; it stops us from agonizing over what might’ve been or what could be. It just brings us back to the present. Because happiness isn’t about where you live or the things you do. It isn’t about being on an impossible mission to do everything. Of course, have achievable goals in life, plan your strategies and achieve everything you ever dreamed. How you achieve it is by building a life around your current location. Making new friends, settling into a routine, finding ways in which to enjoy “the moment” rather than dwelling on all the things you could be doing or the places you could be visiting.
Remember that all we ever have is right now. Forget about the past. Don’t worry about the future. Take each day as it comes, and most of all, stop thinking that the grass is greener, because it never really is. Happiness is a state of mind.
