The other side of the fence

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The grass always seems greener on the other side of the fence.
And along those same lines, whatever someone else has tends to be better than what we have. Their lives seem to be easier, their houses bigger, and their cars faster…

Within the fence ~ or within our own lives, our known comfort zone ~ life is what it is with all of its chores, structures, rules, problems that need to be solved and situations we need to handle. And as we are going through the motions, life seems to be getting dull and dreary.
Yet out there ~ whether it is at our neighbor’s place or even looking at the lives of celebrities ~ life is exciting! They have new and better things than we have, they have interesting friends, and above all, their lives seem a lot easier than our lives are. Or so it seems.

Like a lot of other things we may encounter in life, there are two perspectives at work here that seem to reinforce each other.
The first perspective ~ or perhaps even fact ~ is that we may have retreated in our own comfort zone so thoroughly, that we hesitate to try out new things. Whether it is because we think we are too busy, too tired, or just ‘don’t have it in us’, somehow we have decided for ourselves that in our lives there isn room for new adventures, new goals and achievements, or even new things… That is bound to make life dull and dreary indeed!
The second perspective we may have is that ‘they’ are having easy lives. ‘They’ may have more money, more time, more energy, and so on. ‘They’ may not even have to work as hard as we have to in order to live the good life. For ‘them’ everything just falls into place without the need for overate action…

Chances are this perspective is incomplete at best.
Truth is that we don’t know whether ‘their’ lives are easy, or how hard ‘they’ have had to work to achieve their goals. We have no clue as to what their private lives ~ behind closed doors ~ look like, what problems they encounter in live, or how many difficulties they run into on their lives paths.

Another truth is that coveting someone elses life isn’t going to help us in any way The only live we have to live, and shape, and mold is our own. The only area where we can productively apply ourselves is ‘within the fence’.
So perhaps it is time to water the grass, so new, bright green sprouts will start growing.
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