The grass is always greener. How many times have you heard that phrase, or used it yourself? This is such a familiar concept that we no longer think there is anything wrong with it, in fact, it almost seems strange if you don’t in some way envy the way of life of another person. We use it to describe career vs. leisure, kids vs. no kids, relationship vs. single. Do we feel this way simply to describe a curiosity or is it because we are unfulfilled? If it is the former there is nothing to be done, but if it is the latter then you must ask yourself why you are unfulfilled and what can be done about it.
At what point in life do we learn that it is okay to settle, to compromise our personal happiness? As children we all start out greedy, we want what we want and simply take it when within an arm’s reach. Later, we learn to share. This is an important lesson, but does not devalue our desires. Somewhere between sharing and adulthood we stop reaching for what we want and decide that what we have is enough. What happens, however, when enough really isn’t?
Desire gets a bad rap. The very word has connotations of something dirty or even sinister. We think of desire not in terms of what we need to make us happy, but as an urge to attain something that is somehow more than or over the top. We have phrases we use to disparage those that seek more, such as “wanting your cake and eating it too” or “having it all.” Why is it wrong to reach for more? The assistant that wants to be an executive, the stay-at-home Mom that wants to go back to college, the teenager who wants to move to the big city, are we so wrong for desiring something we see as better? For that matter, if we judge it as better why does that have to mean that we think less of others?
Desire is a personal concept. What one person wants is unique to their personal journey. Parents take it personally when a child does not want to go into the family business, high school best friends feel slighted when the plan to go to the same college falls apart, couples drift when love and marriage turn out not to be the golden ticket to happiness. According to our relationship lore, love is doomed lest it be your “soul mate.” So what happens when you don’t believe in a soul mate. Maybe you think love for love’s sake is actually an okay concept. Are you expected to give up your spouse because she’s not your soul mate, despite loving her? Conversely, what if a soul mate is not a practical option. No matter how romantic love can be, reality must enter into at some point. How will you support yourselves, do you have topics in common, do you even like one another?
It is easy in times of hardship or confusion to look at another’s life and think how nice it would be to trade places, but that is meant to just be fantasy. A busy and ragged wife and mother might think about the freedom of her single friends who travel, drink, and love freely, but would she actually give up her children for such a life? Let’s hope not. Life is hard work and every aspect of it proves to be a little bit of a struggle regardless of how easy it might start out. The distinction, is in finding a path that is worth the effort, but not so hard that it becomes invaluable. When I was in my youthful relationship with Dave, I used to say that love is work, but there is a limit to how hard it should be. Likewise, it shouldn’t be too easy, because those relationships are more often than not built on superficial pleasures.
So if the grass is always greener and it is in our nature to seek out the easy pleasure, how do we distinguish between what is necessary for our happiness and what is just gluttonous? Can we ever be sure that the path we are on will yield true fulfillment rather than momentary satisfaction? Being unemployed for far longer than I would like to admit generated the unfortunate moment of self-discovery. I always said that what was holding me back from learning the guitar or volunteering more was a lack of time, but now that I have nothing but time, I am still falling far short of my goals. Don’t even get me started on ho much time I have not spent in the gym, because it is significant. Those long, lean girls look fantastic when I see them jogging past, but I’m still on the couch learning to re-love daytime TV.
Life is rarely what we expect, though there are always those privileged few who seem to get everything a little easier than the rest of us. They grow up rich, their parents pay for college, find a career that pays them well without sucking out their soul and on it goes. I have friends that fit this mold and I am glad for them, but find the answer to envy is the knowledge that they are still somehow missing out. Sure, they have no college debt, live in a big house, drive a nice car, and are gainfully employed, but something tells me that they may not be truly living. So much in life is meant to be a road that veers off the highway, taking you to unexpected places. It is from these detours that you not only experience, but learn and yet they are almost always the paths seemingly at odds with everything else in your life.
What do you give up for the sake of experience. Can Carpe Diem replace the comforting thought of knowing you have someone to grow old with and a family to be there when you take your final breaths? I guess this is all dependent on how you define fulfillment. Normalcy has never been my thing, but neither do I want to burn hot and fast only to discover that I am alone and miserable in my later years. I love my life for the most part, but the question of what constitutes as settling and what is actually happiness continues to plague me. I want to live a good life and be a good person to those I share my journey with, but I am also ever cognizant of the fact that at some point each of us has our own path and I don’t want to die a martyr, I want to die happy.
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