Is The Grass Greener On The Other Side? Or How You Can Live A Happier Life

I am by no means a life coach or anything like that. However I can write about a couple of things that made me realize why I used to never be happy.

I was born and raised in an area where I was able to enjoy all of the four seasons. Then I lived in Florida for 4 years. One of the reasons I personally didn’t like it was the fact that there’s one season and one season only: summer. I normally love summer. However, for those entire four years I hated it. I was craving winter. And craving it badly.

Eventually, last year I moved to Chicago. Needless to say, I was quite excited about the upcoming winter. And what a winter we had! I just loved it. To the point where all my friends started making jokes that everyone hates winter around here, except for me. Little do they know that after the first month or so, it started bugging me. I was talking on the phone with friends from Florida, they were telling me how nice and warm it was there and I started wanting summer again. (But just so you know, I didn’t tell anyone.)

Then, all of sudden, one day I started thinking about my situation: I craved winter so badly, and now that I have it, I don’t want it anymore.

Whacked out as I am, I began making all kind of associations.

For example, how many kids do you know that drive their parents nuts about a toy they want, but once they have it they play with it for a few days and then off to bugging the parents for another one.

Has it ever happened to you to want to quit a job really badly, only to want to go back once you’re out of it?

Is the grass really greener on the other side?

While sometimes it is, most of the times is just an illusion.

I decided to fight it. And I started by trying to figure out when I’m dealing with just pure saturation, when it’s human nature and when it’s just my awfully unstable personality (to the point where I think I have ADD).

I can’t tell you how to do that. Each of us has to figure it out on their own.

What I can tell you is the approach for those situations when it’s human nature that keeps me from being happy: be happy with what I have.

Before you yell at me that this is how the rich people want us to think to keep us poor so they can stay rich, let me explain.

First of all, I am trying to make a better financial life for myself. So far I got myself out of debt. From now on comes investment for the future.

Then I’m going to say something probably even more awkward: learning to be happy with what you have, might actually help you in the battle for a better life. It calms you down and it gives you the clarity to see things from an objective point of view. To realize what dreams have a chance to become reality and to make a plan and which ones are just out of the question (for example, no matter how badly I would like to, I could never ever become a singer – I just don’t have the voice for it).

And once you have used the peace given to you by your ability to be happy with what you have to plan for your big break, until that happens, you can actually enjoy life. None of my personal achievements which put me through hell brought me any happiness. They became rather something I was glad I was done with. On the other, once I learned my lesson, I was able to take the necessary steps for accomplishing my goals and, at the same time, free myself of all the worries and the stress, and enjoy my life while waiting for the results.

Learning to be happy with what you have also gives you better tools to decide whether you really want the greener grass from the other side or not. Do you? If you do, we go back to being able to build and put into action a plan to get it.

But how can I learn to be happy with what I have?

Again, I can only tell you how I do it.

For that, let me ask you this: do you find yourself many times wanting to have what your friends have? Even if it’s not many times, it’s the place to start. To make my advice easier to understand I’m going to use examples.

When I moved to Chicago, a friend of mine and his girlfriend had just bought their own place. I was all excited for them and all I could think about was how badly I wished I had a place of my own. Because at the time I was deep in debt, it was just out of the question. In the mean time, I got to spend a lot of time at their place and realized it’s just another house. And that it’s what you make out of it that makes it home. Don’t get me wrong. It’s an awesome place and I love it. But since they became my best friends here in Chicago, I get to spend a lot of time over there. And they are the first ones who gave me the chance to see exactly what it means to own a house. I saw their own excitement go down a little bit. It’s not such a big deal for them anymore either. In the mean time I tried to get my own place, but for various reasons it didn’t work out. And to be honest with you, I’m happy. Why? The frenzy went away. Owning a house doesn’t impress me anymore. I’m happy with the apartment I share with my roommate for $300 a month (my share). I know what many think: why pay that rent to someone else and not yourself? Because if you add the taxes, maintenance (assessment) and interest paid to the bank, it’s over $300 which, as far as I’m concerned is wasted money. Add to that the monthly payment for the principal and I just don’t have the money for that. (Actually I do have it, but I would rather use it to plant the seeds for some other type of investments.) Again, the $300 is wasted money anyway. Put that together with the real estate market we’re having here in Chicago right now and it’s just not the time. This is one example of how I learned to be happy with what I have and how that, further on, cooled me down and helped me realize buying my own place is not what I really want YET. Yet, I repeat. I am a believer of “own your own house” current. I just realized it’s not for me yet. I don’t even want to think about the trouble I would have been through if I would have gotten my hands on the greener grass.

Here’s another example. I just love BMW cars. It’s the one kind of car I truly hope to own one day. I could probably buy one today. But I’m not willing to. Financial reasons again. However, that’s not the whole story. I am quite happy with my 2004 Chevy Cavalier. You want to know why? Because I had the chance to ride in a BMW. Even drive one. After all, IT’S JUST A CAR. What drive their prices up a lot and make them luxury are features I don’t necessarily need and the name. What I need right now is an affordable car. I don’t need a luxury. I’m not in that place (hopefully, YET). I cooled off after I drove it and I learned to be happy with my car. Learning this taught me that, while I will one day own a BMW, it’s just not the time yet.

As you can see, in both cases, having the chance to experience (even if only to some degree) the greener grass on the other side, helped me learn to be happy with the one that I have on my side. It helped me think straight, figure out what exactly I want and make plans for getting there while being happy on the way. It also helped as an exercise to learn that just because someone has something that seems nice and interesting, it doesn’t necessarily mean that having the same thing will make me happy.

I suggest you start in the same place. Look at little things some of your friends have which you would like to have. Ask them to let you “play” with them and get that virus out of you. After a while you’ll learn to do it on your own. And you’ll see that you’ll enjoy life much more.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 23rd, 2007 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Human Nature, Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.