My neighbor has a beautiful lawn. My car isn’t as nice as my coworkers. I wish I had _____________ (fill in the blank). Others may have better health. Why do we compare and what is gained from it? If you allow it to inspire you to greater achievements or cause you to change a poor habit that can be a good thing! If it’s simply jealousy then comparison can drive us to flat out discontentment!
I have been watching my neighbors irrigate. Some of my neighbors have water rights and use big water cannons to water 200 x 100-foot swaths of crops or pasture in minutes. I have watering cans and a small irrigation reel that waters 60 x 20 feet of plants at a time. It does use less water but it takes hours to finish a 200-foot-long run. And I buy every drop of water from the city of Stanwood ($$$$). He has a river to pull from. But what good does it really do for me to wish I had water rights, when I do not. Absolutely no benefit! So, I use the resources I have available and keep going, because thinking about that big irrigation cannon next door, will not get my crops watered 😊
The other day I attended a one-day business seminar. I learned a few things, but one thing that caught my attention was when the speaker asked the audience, “Where is the grass greener?”
What do you think? Where is the grass greener? Is it on the other side of the fence, in different neighborhood, in another state? We all have unique situations with unique answers. At the conference the speaker encouraged us to consider the, perhaps obvious, answer…
“The grass is always greener where you water it!”
Most of us have at least a few areas in our lives that if we watered them, they would be greener. Some of us have cannons to water with and some of us work hard with an irrigation reel and a watering can. So, with that reminder from the seminar speaker, I pivoted on my thinking and started to “reframe” a few areas in my life to make sure I water them one way or another. Sometimes we end up watering areas that we don’t want to grow! It’s equally important to refrain from watering those areas! No farmer I know purposely waters a weed patch!
I would encourage all of us to be contemplative about the longings we may have. Whether it’s a desire for deeper, meaningful relationships, more rewarding work, opportunities to relax and enjoy, or achieving greater health all usually take intentionality for change or growth, a little bit of hard work, and also some contentment in the process.
Cultivating positive growth can be hard and there will always be factors that you can’t change or control and seasons that feel like a drought! Whatever our unique circumstances are, we can all fill a watering can and choose to water those areas that will make a positive impact on our life and the lives of those around us!
-Tristan