Is the grass greener? Posted on wordpress blog April 1, 2010

We’re all regularly told that “the grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence”. It’s something we grow up with, a way of telling us that we shouldn’t always “want” – sometimes we should be happy with our lot.
Yet we’re also taught to aspire to things, to want to better ourselves, whether by money, jobs, relationships, possessions, experiences.
So what to do? Where is the line? Where do we stop and say enough is enough. It seems for lots of us (those who aren’t perfect of course) that we get the things we want – the lifestyle, the job, the friends, the partner – then suddenly the goalposts move. How many times have you said to yourself, “if only I had x, y, and z then I’d be satisfied”, only to find that you get those things then suddenly have different wants? I know that happens to me on countless occasions.
So where do we stop? When is enough? I really don’t know – it’s something everyone seems to have problems with. Is it actually a symptom of the world we live in? Is that why we have problems with crime, with fraud, with high divorce rates. We only have to look at MPs to see a symptom of not being able to see that enough is enough – why do you need so many expenses to fund plugs, duck houses blah blah blah? Of course, it’s easy to criticise them, but are we any better? Is that why people switch from partner to partner? Use endless credit cards? Go on huge long, “tick-box” adventures for no reason other than to say we’ve been there.
But then we look at the people who don’t do that – who don’t aspire to anything – as “no hopers”. People who are just happy to settle for anything – to not bother with the job they have, to not want to see the world, to not even want to find that elusive “true love” that we all dream about but find hard to catch hold of. Perhaps they’ve got the right idea?
I’m sure the wise people somewhere would say there’s a happy medium between the two – between wanting more but not letting it destroy the good things you have. Well, if someone finds that happy medium, that invisible line, can you please drop me a line? I’d love a bit of a hint, it would make things a lot easier.