The grass is not always greener.

Author, Robert Wright, has a concept of life and Buddhism that's truly resonating.

Life isn’t necessarily about constant suffering, which many scholars argue that it is, yet, life is a world of unsatisfactoriness.

Chris Williamson on his podcast Modern Wisdom told a hypothetical story that puts this all into perspective:

Picture an imaginary couple.

This couple plans a holiday vacation and is obsessed with putting together their itinerary for the trip.

They know exactly the hotel they’re going to stay at. They look at the menu of the hotel, the hotel bar, and the restaurant they’re going to go to.

They know exactly what table they’re going to sit at and what they’re going to order. 

And they know that the sun sets at a certain time, they’ve imagined it, and they’ve thought about it obsessively.

They’ve also organized the kennel that’s going to look after their dog, and who’s house sitting the house, before they finally fly out, and they get there…

The couple then gets to the restaurant and the wife sits down. She’s facing the sun, but the sun’s actually a bit too low for her liking.

And it’s sort of glancing off the water, but it’s a bit too bright for her eyes.

They do get their cocktails, but they wish that they got it on the rocks instead of blended.

They get to the beach the next day but the sand gets into her socks and shoes after she’s done walking on the beach.

Life. Is. Unsatisfactory.

And it always will be.

It is baked into our existence that things are just going to be on average a bit worse than we hoped they would be.

And even if they do outdo our expectations, very quickly, we’re going to be looking over the current moment’s shoulder, just trying to see what’s coming next.

A lot of this can be thanks to the fact that we, as humans, get the most dopamine from anticipation.

It’s not by actually achieving it.

We get the most dopamine by dreaming about the things we want.

Why do you think there are movie trailers, cliffhangers, ads, limited edition drops, and wish lists?

These things create desire and anticipation.

Think about a family trip or vacation that you’ve been on in the past.

Why is it that we often find ourselves in some magnificent tropical paradise or cool place away from home, but we have instances where we think “Man, wouldn’t it be so great to come back here next year?”.

Even though we’re literally there right now, what gives us the most pleasure is thinking about coming back.

That’s just how the brain works because the anticipation of an event or thing is going to give us more dopamine than the fact that we’re actually there in the moment.

How Can We Solve This?

Remain in the present moment AND focus on the things we can control right now, not what’s potentially going to happen in the future.

“You can’t see around two corners. Take the first step around the first corner so you get a better view of the second one.”

We worry too much about things that are off in the far distant future instead of what’s right in front of us right now.

Instead, we should first focus on the task that can be tackled right in front of us and take action on that instead.

Accomplishing this first task may even unlock new perspectives and insight into what needs to be done next to progress toward our goal.

We learn through trial and error.

The adversity and failures we experience while going through life and pursuing a purpose, unlock lessons and new skills we otherwise would’ve never learned.

Goals are never accomplished overnight. 

They require a multitude of completed, tiny, “action tasks” that add up and snowball slowly over time.

Eventually, these “snowballed” accomplishments add up to the completion of our desired, overarching goal.

Back to the quote above: We’ll never see that second corner of life without stepping around the first. 

Each chapter of our life is just as important as the next.

This all goes back to remaining in the present moment. 

How can we appreciate the lessons we’re learning right now if we’re too busy focusing on the next?

🏁 In the end…

Life will never be perfect and we should 100% expect things to be unsatisfactory at times.

The grass will always seem to be greener on the other side, but this is never the case.

There are positives and negatives to everything in our lives.

It’s a give-and-take world.

Absorb this concept into your mind and worry less about uncontrollables.

We’re human, there’s only so much that we can control in this world.

Be well.

Until Next Time, C.