We might not want the grass to be greener on the other side!
A couple of days back, I came across an extract from the book The bell jar by Silvia Plath which goes as:
I saw my life branching out before me… From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet, and another fig was a brilliant professor… and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions… and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out.
I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
Ah, isn’t this something to contemplate about! So I did. I recalled the moments in my life where I faced significant choices. I began to imagine how my life might have unfolded had I chosen differently at those pivotal moments. Considering my upbringing, I didn’t see many branches in the path, but now I can envision countless potential paths I could have taken.
When I consider each of these paths and the choices I could have made, it makes me wonder how my life would be now if I had selected a different ‘fig.’ I can now empathize with the experiences of friends who chose the ‘figs’ I once contemplated. It made me realize that everyone has their own ‘what if’ moments — “What if I had chosen that ‘fig’?” Yet, this train of thought often reminds me the timeless adage:
The grass is always greener on the other side.
Does this supposed to lead us to a conclusion that no matter what ‘fig’ we choose, we may ultimately end up unhappy and full of regrets? This perspective shall be challenged if we consider the following:
As we all know, we can endure almost anything as long as we are pursuing what we truly love. This means we can be happy with adversity too if we make “the choices” aligned with our deepest desires. “The choices” which aren’t influenced by external pressures or biases. If we are aware what fig makes us happy, in a sense, what genuinely makes us happy, even if the grass on our side isn’t entirely green, we can always find the patch of greener grass, lay down a picnic blanket, and enjoy the moment.
Aaaah!! If life would have been that easy where we know exactly what makes us happy, there might be less room for egos, envy, regrets, conflicts, and even suicides. We would find the greener patch at our side caring less about the greener grass on the other side.
Now comes the important and the difficult question which I have been asking myself for a very long time.
How can we determine what truly makes us happy?
Lets assume we don’t know about us or our own happiness. When we are looking at branching out figs to choose a fig, unaware of the life each ‘fig’ represents, our choices can become influenced and biased by the people surrounding us. Some have already walked those paths, and we witness their experiences. Some are so good at narrating their perceptions that we go blind on ours. Bam! Unintended choice! Hence back to square one and the cycle repeats.
I pondered over what actually makes me happy? I didnt find the answer. So I have tricked my mind by framing the question in a different angle: “what makes me unhappy?” Well, suprisingly, this perspective proved more accessible, as I am unhappy about handful of things. So, I started to avoid them which made me happier than before. This experience taught me that the human mind sometimes requires different frames of questioning to arrive at the answers we seek. So, never give up in asking ourselves the most sensible questions until we get a satisfied answer from our mind.
In conclusion, all this contemplation has led me to appreciate how tricky and important it is to know what makes us happy. If this aspect is taken care of, we don’t want the grass to be greener always as I am sure somewhere there has to be a patch where its greener and where we can live without guilt.