The Grass is Greener

Son, 

For some reason, folk always want to reference themselves to others that are better off, and rarely to those worse off.  Then we focus on what the other folk have that is ‘better than what I have’ and think ‘the grass is greener over there’.  

Greener grass, metaphorically, can be a motivator - a person with a better character can inspire you to be a better person … a person with a better attitude to money can inspire you to be better at money, however, if the ‘greener grass’ raises feelings of jealousy, frustration or unworthiness, then you are looking at life the wrong way.  

The reason we see the grass IS greener on the other side of (some) fences, is to inspire us the possibility to make our own grass greener !  

Now, as an ex-VIP HOME SERVICES franchise sales manager, I know a little about making grass greener.  The first is NITROGEN.  When we would win a new customer to mow their lawns, we would add nitrogen fertilizer to the lawn for free.  This would make the grass grown faster and then need regular service.  Hand in hand with fertilizer, it is critical to have WATER, lest the fertilizer actually burnt the grass like a female cat pee.  The second is just that - regular cutting makes the grass grow thicker - more dense, giving better coverage.  The third, is to cut to the right height - if you cut too low too soon, you get the ‘quick’ of the grass - the yellow part which burns quickly in hot sun.  Regular cutting also means you can eventually cut grass lower and still have it green.  Oh, and don’t forget we need to remove the weeds - manually, or chemically, a green lawn cannot inspire if it has parasitical weeds all through it. 

So, how could we apply these rules as metaphors for our lives - for our lawns?  Firstly, remember that life is not linear by definition, so there are always ‘dimensions’ to what we are considering. You may see a wealthy family, and consider their wealth ‘greener’ than yours, however you may not know they are desperately unhappy and they see your happiness as ‘greener’ than theirs.  

What then, could be NITROGEN and WATER?  To family and friends  - LOVE and TIME.  To business, it could be TIME and FOCUS.  To wealth, it could be SELF-CONTROL and KNOWLEDGE. To fun, it could be LIMITLESS and WILDNESS or something less dramatic like ‘being able to play an instrument’.  Consider the friends you know and respect who have these applied qualities.  Be inspired, and then realize YOUR POTENTIAL to inspire others is equally as valid. 

Now we are evolving faster, our grass is greener, but not tidy  - we need to remove the weeds.  This could be as simple as a SELF-CONFRONT for what is ‘working’ and what is ‘not working’ as you planned.  Remember WEEDS also respond wonderfully to NITROGEN so some of the things you do to have greener grass may also have negative consequences (eg. Party Times, haha).  And so, you get the chance to dig out some weeds (maybe some non-helpful attitudes) or apply a chemical like ROUND-UP but be careful because ROUND-UP will kill the good plants with the weeds. This is the double-edged sword of ‘rules’.  You could have a rule to eliminate all negative people from your life … fine … then a dear friend loses a much-loved wife and in that short moment of the ‘anger’ phase, expresses negativity.  Do you ‘cancel’ him, or have ‘empathy’? If you use empathy, are you breaking your rules? If you break one rule, have you broken all? This is the challenge of being aggressive on weeds (opn making too many rigid rules). Personally, I like the manual method of removing weeds (negative things)- it takes longer as you deliberate and it doesn’t always work (the root of the weed can break as you are prying it out of the ground), however  - you have a better feel for the result. 

Once we have a weedless lawn, we can start to perfect it. We do that with regular cutting like a golf green, a tennis court, or a cricket pitch.   This is the fine tuning of self.  It is at this time, that we should look at the ‘balance’ of our life - in the pursuit of greener grass, did we advance our ‘sum-total self’ or did we ‘rob Peter to pay Paul’ (for example, sacrificed family to gain wealth).  Metaphorically, we could think of this as the ‘cutting of the lawn to thicken it, and shorten the grass’ which will take a long time - it is the process of pursuit of our goals with a sense of balance.  

In the end, decades later, you will be the inspiration of others - ever mixing with new folk with new aspects of ‘greener grass’ … a never ending story, a magnificent pursuit.

Dad.