The Grass is NOT Greener on the Other Side
I am convinced this mentality is a significant source of depression today.
In modern speak, you may have heard of “FOMO”- the fear of missing out. Everyone else seems to be having all the fun. Everyone else seems to be able to travel to exotic places while you slave away at your job.
I realized with all these people I was jealous of, I couldn’t just choose little aspects of their life. (Naval Ravikant)
You have to zoom out from the picture others set for you. You want to travel like them? Maybe they have the means to do so. But more often than not, they’re able to do that on purely credit card debt. This is one example. You have to assume the entire package, not just the good stuff.
Social Media Adds to this Problem
With the social media’s pervasive reach, we can easily compare our “boring” lives to others. But this is a mistake. We know our own struggles. We know that the façade we’re placing in front of the reality of our experiences is meant for easy consumption. It is meant to show others just how full a life we’re living. Other people are the same way. They only show their lawns when it is green. We can easily forget the struggles they experienced to make their lawns green. We judge our brown lawns with their green ones.
Life is all about tradeoffs. It’s all about trial and error. Stop looking at others’ lawns. In North Korea, there are allegedly fake grocery stores that have very picturesque displays of food and other goods. What they wouldn’t dare show is the real struggle their people experience. Why would they? It’s bad press.
Why would people show you their struggles?
Some do. More people don’t.
Water your own lawn. Make that shit green AF.
You have control over how green your grass is. So water the crap out of that lawn. Figure out what fertilizer works best for your “lawn.” Sometimes your grass will be brown indicating you’ve neglected it. Sometimes, it’ll be too think for your own liking.
