Where the grass is always greener

When someone says that the grass is always greener, it’s usually said in a cautionary tale. When you drive past a farm and you see cows sticking their heads through the fence, eating the grass of the unfortunate fellow living on the other side, these cows don’t realize they’ve probably got their heads stuck. It’s a fun comparison to make, and it sheds light on how we as people are always anticipating the next best thing. We are happy, we are content, and then we are bored. In the context I’ll be speaking about today, I’m going to talk about work. So many of us are jumping from job to job, hoping the next paycheck opportunity will rake in more glory or cash than the last one, only for us to realize that looking back, it wasn’t so bad there. We’ve eaten all the proverbial grass in our field. With that, I have some bad news for you. Fame doesn’t happen overnight, and there are only so many fields we can consume before we’ve chewed ourselves into a corner. When we engage in such anhedonic behavior, we don’t get the satisfaction or experience from growing the field ourselves.

No one gets famous overnight. I was talking to a recent friend of mine who said that he managed to achieve his modicum of success after nearly 20 years of hard work. As difficult as that is for some people to digest, it’s the ugly reality of life. Anything worth having takes hard work and effort. Instead of jumping around and trying to hitch a ride on the next best thing, take some time to tend to your own garden and make it worth living in. You may find that the reward of your own investment is not only in status, monetary value, but also in personal growth—something that no amount of fields can really replace. There is no substitute for a solid work ethic, so settle down, invest, and get back out there.