Sure, I’ll be the first to admit it. I’m an incredibly jealous guy. The new iPhone? Yes, I want one. The new shirt you bought in Little Rock last weekend? I just know it would look awesome on me too. And please, don’t even get me started on the 2013 Dodge Charger SXT that’s sitting in the showroom. If I just had those things, life would probably be too perfect, wouldn’t it?
I was raised to expect nothing less than the best from myself, but somewhere in my life, that turned into nothing less than the best for myself. Somewhere in there, the thought came into my head that the things I want will just be handed to me. Each passing day it becomes more and more apparent to me that nothing in this life will ever come free.
The past few summers I have had the privilege of working a landscaping job and if I’ve learned any one thing from that job, it’s that the grass is truly greener where it’s been taken care of and worked on. I am realizing that the same can be said of life itself. Perhaps if you aren’t so satisfied with what you have, it’s time for you to get to work.
I have always been a “grass is greener on the other side” kind of person. I have always looked at the fortunes and successes of others and wished I could have them, and really, is that a bad quality to have? If you were to ask me, I would have to say no. But it turns from a good quality to a bad one when you begin to forget about “your own yard,” so to speak: when you start to neglect all the things you have.
I am an incredibly blessed guy. Among other things, I have a smartphone that works well for me and plenty of clothes piled away in my dorm room that are (at least in my own opinion) reasonably fashionable. I drive a reliable 2007 Toyota Camry that runs fine and gets me from place to place as well as I could ever hope a car could. Probably most important of all these things, I have a fantastically supportive family and some of the greatest friends I could ever hope for. When I step back to look at all of the blessings in my life, I can see that I am an incredibly lucky person.
Despite all of the luck and the blessings that have been bestowed in my life, there is still that desire and that ambition for bigger, brighter and flashier things in my life. I’ll always want the best things for myself, and that’s where there has to be a change in mindset. I constantly ask myself, “How can I achieve these things?” and maybe after 15 years of school, I’ve finally found the simple one-word answer: work.
So maybe what it boils down to is that the grass might be a little greener on the other side, but in the end, it will always be greener where it has been worked on.
