What If the Grass is Not Greener?

If you’re a human being, you’ve inevitably experienced the “grass is greener on the other side” feeling. It seems to be in our nature to want what we don’t have. And especially in the era of social media, it’s also very common that we compare our lives unfavorably to how other people portray their lives online.

Even when we think back on our own lives, we can end up in a “grass is greener” story, comparing our current life to a hypothetical different life where we made different (better) choices.

Needless to say, this kind of thinking causes suffering and it’s rarely if ever productive in any way.

There are also quite a few subtleties to the mental story of “the grass is greener” which make it worth unpacking.

Exercise

• Think about one version of a “grass is greener” story in your mind. Choose either one that comes up frequently for you or think of a recent example.
• Write down the fictional story that explains why this other person or this other life path is so much better. Describe the story you tell yourself, including all the glorious drama. Don’t worry about being reasonable or measured, write out exactly how it plays out in your mind.
  • “This other person has an amazing relationship and family, they seem so much happier than me, they have purpose in their life and are building their legacy while I’m still single and lonely.” 😭
• Now, describe an alternative to this fictional story, where you include some messy, real life details. Don’t aim to catastrophize, just increase the plausibility of the story.
  • “Perhaps their relationship isn’t perfect. Perhaps there are good moments but also many moments of struggle and maybe they have been considering divorce lately. Perhaps they do love raising their kids and that’s wonderful, but it also comes at the cost of many freedoms I take for granted.”

Note: the goal of this exercise is come to a more grounded, realistic perspective. Both about my life and the life I’m comparing to. What causes a lot of suffering is comparing a catastrophized version of my life with an idealized version of a different life. By writing things out clearly, you can come to recognize that this is very literally a self produced drama playing out in your mind.