Is the Grass Greener or Not?

This past Thanksgiving weekend had me thinking quite a bit about the idea of gratitude. I know—my propensity for original thought is astounding.

But in particular, I was considering the idea of being grateful for what I currently have versus the always wanting of more. It seems that so many of us are perpetually pushing ourselves to reach that next level, only to arrive at the desired position or to have acquired the dream object, and find immediately that we are ready for the next rung on the ladder to appear. It seems, therefore, that it is hard for us to be grateful for what we have now, without tying some element of what we want next into the equation.

And is this devotion/obsession with the next best thing a positive motivator or a hindering debilitating factor? Is it an assurance that we will always strive for more and thus be on a constant trajectory of a better version of ourselves, or does it merely mean that no matter how far we go, how much we achieve, we will always feel inadequate as we stare greedily at the next, as yet unachieved, goal?

For the sake of full disclosure, I am definitely someone who is always thinking about the next step, about the future—about the destination as opposed to the journey, if you will. It is a struggle for me to live in the moment, although I am trying very hard to do so—every day.

Of course, like you may be as well, I am very much a product of a society that does not necessarily endorse living in the now, but has conditioned its members to be very “future focused.” As you know, recent buzz words of the past several years have sought to undo some of that mentality and there have been many infiltrations of the more Eastern philosophy of living in the moment. Hence the existence of a yoga studio in innumerable strip malls all over the country.

So, as I pondered this concept of gratitude and how it relates to my (affliction?) of being “future focused,” I was trying to discern what the difference actually was between having a “grass is always greener” attitude, which I feel is detrimental and damaging, and simply having a consistent urge for self-betterment and improvement, which I feel is healthy and necessary to lead a happy life.

Now, having graduated from my undergraduate institution with a bachelor’s degree in English Literature, I fancy myself to be quite adept with a little trope called the analogy. In fact, I am able to draw analogies between even the most unrelated of circumstances or situations—thanks in large part to the English departments at Middlesex School and at Colby College.

In consideration of the subtle, yet vast difference between building a broader and better life versus always wanting more, different, and new, I came up with an analogy. Did it initially seem unrelated? Absolutely. Does it somehow work in my oddball mind of drawing correlations between farfetched circumstances? Indeed.

Here you have it: growing up, I was a rather avid gymnast. The flat, water-ski type appendages that are attached to my ankles, in conjunction with my towering-for-a-gymnast height of five-foot six-inches, cut my career unceremoniously short.

Incidentally, my “quitting” coincided with my coach implementing mandatory practices on Friday night. I do not know about you, but in 8th grade, my rather paltry social life consisted of hanging out at the movie theater or the bowl-a-drome with some rather dreamy young gentlemen. These activities dubbed compulsory by myself and my peers, happened to occur on Friday nights. Frankly, I was darned if I was going to put precious time and energy into being a mediocre gymnast when I could be putting far more precious time and energy into having a decidedly mediocre social life.

Priorities, you know.

In any case, during practice in gymnastics, it was almost a certainty that you were trying to learn a new trick/ridiculous body contortion. I now recall these movements with a sense of wonder and confusion. As in: I flipped my body around with ease on a four-inch wide, four-foot high, cloth-covered saw horse? Really?

It seems that a mere week after I perfected a back handspring, my coach was pushing me to learn a back tuck (basic difference is that the former involves springing back onto your hands and then onto your feet, and the latter is just a hurling of your body backwards through the air with no hands touching the ground—I know: wonder and confusion). Personally, I wanted some time to appreciate my new skill, without tumbling (literally) into another realm of the unknown.

Yet the whole point of gymnastics is to learn a skill so that it will immediately act as the foundation for the next skill.

Wow. Is that not the whole point of life?

It is not an abandonment of the skill achieved, for something newer or better, but rather an appreciation of what has just been realized because it is that skill that enables the next one to even be conceivable, let alone achievable.

In case you are missing the point through my convoluted diatribe: it is the idea of building blocks. It is not as though I learned a back handspring and then felt an immediate urge to conquer the butterfly in a swim meet, or to paint a mural on a bus or something. It was the idea that I was working on a steady and consistent trajectory upwards—or forwards if that direction appeals to you more.

By contrast, if I accomplished something only to abandon it in favor of wanting whatever shiny object caught my eye, then I would be guilty of having a grass is always greener complex. And now I see the difference between such detrimental “want it, need it, have to have it” attitude, and the basic evolution of a person to being a better and better version of herself. Or himself, as I suppose it works for you men too.

So as I was thinking about gratitude and Thanksgiving, I was feeling guilty about the fact that I do always want more, I am always excited about the next thing. I was worried that I was not “living in the now” and fully expressing my appreciation for what I have. But now I realize that even having the dreams of the bigger, the better, the next rung on the ladder is exactly that: a trust and appreciation in the foundation I have built up to this point.

It is an amazing thing: perception. Not quite as amazing as the fact that I used to hurl my body through the air with nary a hesitation, but amazing nonetheless.