The grass is greener where we water it

When we recognise our own doubts and work on improving them, we can only really flourish as people.

We will then continually grow and our grass will thrive and prosper.

If we are in a negative headspace and look longingly at other people’s lives, we can easily let the comparison game take over. When we allow our minds to wander this will inflict painful thoughts such as: “He has a better job that I do... She has a thinner body than me... They have nicer kids than we do...’’. The only thing the comparison game allows us to do, is make us feel worse about ourselves.

The constant looking at others and wondering why we are not in the same place as they are is detrimental to one’s well-being, to one’s self-esteem, to one’s confidence. And the incredible thing is that the very same people who you are looking at and desiring you had their lives are looking over at your qualities and wishing they were in your shoes.

Such is the wonderment of life. It’s in our human nature to want what we don’t have, to not be happy nor grateful and to allow the negativity to fester.

When we’re able to look at the lives of others objectively, hold love and compassion for them and ourselves wholeheartedly, rather than allow jealousy and envy to permeate us, then we are on the winning side.

“The grass is always greener on the other side” is a famous proverb which can be traced as far back as the poetry of Publius Ovidius Naso, better known as Ovid (43 BC-17 AD), who wrote “Fertilior seges est alenis semper in agris”, translated to the harvest is always more fruitful in another man’s fields.

However, in today’s modern world, with all the new learnings and wisdom we have gathered over many years, the saying has since transformed into “the grass is greener where we water it”.

When we focus on ourselves and concentrate on our own problems, we can then find solutions. When we recognise our own doubts and work on improving them, we can only really flourish as people. We will then continually grow and our grass will thrive and prosper.

Upon concentrating on our own gardens, we will notice the weeds and pluck them out. If we look at other’s gardens, we can lose focus and figuratively speaking, these very weeds will overtake the beauty of our garden, so realistically our health and our overall mental well-being will suffer.

Cherishing our own relationships, holding space for our challenges, owning self-love and compassion for our sensitivities and insecurities all the while celebrating our wins will allow us to grow.

Staying in gratitude for what you have will vibrate you on a higher level of happiness. The “grass is greener” syndrome prevents you from acknowledging and appreciating what you currently have. The inability to be grateful for what you have is only exacerbated by the fact that you are constantly looking elsewhere to what you believe will be better.

However, when we take care of our mental, physical and emotional well-being with nutritional foods all the while stimulating our minds with educational materials, (so not being swayed by temptation nor distractions of mindless TV shows or endless social media scrolling) and replace these with reading more books, listening to informational podcasts, surrounding ourselves with like-minded people who energise us as opposed to deplete our energy, these are crucial to ensuring we have a healthy, happy and prosperous life.

I hope you are taking the time to tend to your grass, pluck out the weeds, turn up the soil and plant seeds so your garden will have ample space for beautiful flowers to bloom.