the grass is always greener syndrome
Do you suffer from this? I certainly do!
The grass is always greener syndrome, in case you have been living under a rock for most of your life, can be described simply as always wanting what someone else has (e.g. your neighbour’s house, who has a luscious green lawn compared to yours). However there is a secondary part that if you then got what you originally wanted (e.g. you moved next door and got that nice lawn) then there would be something else that you would notice about your original situation that you preferred more (e.g. you didn’t realise your neighbours garden required daily maintenance and actually now preferred the low maintenance rockery you in at your old garden).
It’s a worry I have for when I hit Financial Independence, especially from recent comments from various people who have already got there, not least Jim McG who has just started his own blog up (go take a look by the way, it’s very entertaining so far!) and wrote about the top 10 downsides to FI.
Although the article was admittedly tongue in cheek, it does highlight how us humans can often find ourselves in a sweet situation and just end up focusing on the negatives from it if we are not careful. Meanwhile we forget about the negatives from our previous situation and look back with rose tinted augmented reality 3D google glasses (or something like that) and say, “why did I think that was so bad?”. It’s really stupid and we know we shouldn’t do it, but we sometimes just can’t help ourselves!
the tfs grass is always greener top ten
Inspired by Jim McG’s top tens, I thought I’d do my own top 10 of different life situations where I thought the grass was always greener:
1. School
I am pretty sure I hated school for the most part when I was there, however as soon as I grew up and started working a job with normal hours at the weekend I quickly realised how sweet a deal we have it as kiddywinks. All that free time to do whatever you want in the evenings! 6 weeks off every summer!??!!! Jeez man, the grass was definitely greener on the school/work divide in this case. In my defence as a child, I had never experienced work so I had no point of reference, and I think the grass on the other side in this case was simply just “not going to school” and not work as such, but I think it still counts due to the whole “not realising how sweet a deal you have” aspect.
2. Sixth Form
It was in 6th form where I got into making electronic music (geek, I know, but hey I loved it) and I certainly would never have that sort of freedom to spend hours on the computer being creative again. Although at the time all I was thinking about was getting a job so I could afford some decent equipment, I never realised how good I had it!
3. First proper job
I worked for a retail computer sales company called Tiny computers. The pay was excellent 1 considering my tender age of 18 although it was fairly long hours and was a high pressured commission based sales environment. I pretty much hated that aspect of the job although obviously enjoyed the pay and got to work with some very “interesting” characters 🙂
So now I could afford all that equipment I was after in point 2 but I had no time to actually use the bloody stuff!
So yet again I found myself looking forward to the next step in life which was going to University, where I would have lots more free time (again) to do the things I really wanted to do, such as make electronic music and become a superstar DJ (Ugh! I suppose you have to admire the aspirational naivety of yoof!)
4. University
So much free time on my hands now!!! What did I do with that… Wasted it all being hungover. Oh dear 🙂
I also found the degree I chose, Music Technology, became a bit of a chore now it was a forced activity rather than a voluntary one, and it seemed to stifle the creativity I had when I was back in those young and free flowing hazy school dayz. Or maybe it was just the hangovers 🙂
By the end of University I was definitely a bit bored of the whole lifestyle and being skint all the time got old pretty quickly (don’t worry I was working jobs where I could to avoid going into debt etc…) so was looking forward to graduating and getting a “proper job” where the grass was most surely going to be greener?*
*Spoiler alert to any younger readers out there: It most certainly isn’t… why the hell do you think I’m so obsessed with retiring early? 😉
5. Living in London
When I started to work in London the commute was a killer and yes I do still like to moan about that on the odd occasion 😉
So really all I wanted to do was to move up to The Big Smoke as soon as I could afford it. However after one year of living there I decided it really wasn’t for me. All of my family and most of my friends were still back in my home town so I found myself feeling quite isolated and was just coming home every weekend. The green grass grey concrete of London was most definitely not greener (for me) than the lush meadows of Sussex 🙂 and now I’m back commuting again I much prefer this original situation!
6. Travelling
We went on the trip of a lifetime in ’08 and drove across the US of A followed by bussing it around South America for about 5 months. It may sounds ridiculous but there are some downsides to being away which you don’t think about before you go, such as missing family, UK food, your own bed etc… It can also get very tiring being on the road all the time, especially if you are doing the driving!
Clearly I would not have changed this trip for the world but before I went away I thought I could be one of those digital nomad type people. Afterwards I realised that around 6 months is probably my limit for being away, and I really did miss Ma, Pa and the rest of the TFS clan too much to ever move away somewhere permanently. I do love to travel but guess I’m a home boy at heart! 🙂
7. Owning your own home
It’s the British dream isn’t it, home ownership?
Once you own your own bricks and mortar (well, the bank does at least) you know you’ve made it and are a proper adult. What the mortgage advisor won’t tell you though is that it’s a right old fucking ball-ache with a never ending list of chores to be done, things to be fixed and bills to be paid. I’ve actually learned 2 to enjoy all this stuff over the years but at the start I have to admit it was a bit of a culture shock and considered it a major time suck when I could have been doing something way better such as playing video games.
Renting ain’t all that bad and the grass is most definitely not automatically greener just because you own your own residence!
8. Being a manager at work
Ok I’ll admit I made this one up. I never really wanted to be a manager at work (apart from getting the pay rise of course!) because I foresaw that the extra bullshit you get with the position was not for me. However I think for many people this will definitely be a grass is greener situation:
“Once I become a manager all my money worries will dissapear and I will finally get the respect and admiration from peers that I deserve, along with my own headed letter template and full access to the stationary cupboard!!!” – one might be thinking (again I am guessing here)
Once I became a manager my fears were mostly proven correct and although now the team I’m on is great, it took two stressful years of hiring and firing to get there. Ironically I am now stepping down just as things are all good in the hood, but I’m not going to miss the extra admin, email answering and so on. I am literally just about to “step down” as this last month has kind of been a handover month, and I already feel way more chilled out and am getting more work that is actually interesting done. Big whoop for me! However this brings us onto…
9. Going part time…???
As mentioned a few months ago I am going part time at work (33% cut in hours). This new shift pattern is just about to start with me working 4 weeks in September and then having the following two weeks off.
What if this new situation becomes a grass is always greener moment?!
Will I miss full time employment!?
What if I can’t find any part time freelance work to fill up the other 33% of my time?
What if being at home on my own isn’t for me and I start to feel isolated from the real world?
I can’t see any of the above happening but I just don’t know having never done it before. It may well turn out to be the grass is always greener, I will find out very soon!
10. Financial Independence…???
I sincerely hope not but I would be naive to not at least consider that FI could be a grass is greener moment.
Will I miss the regular paycheque?
The feeling of going out to work and achieving something?
I am aware that I do start to feel down in the dumps if I have a few days off and don’t really do anything productive so I will need to work hard on making sure I am always balancing the chilling out with “doing something” such as building/fixing stuff around the house, training towards some sort of health/fitness goal, helping friends/family out or volunteering my services to a charity.
Don’t get me wrong, I think I will be fine on this count! But it’s silly not to consider and prepare for this sort of thing.
conclusion – the grass is always green, buddy!
The lesson here is a simple, clear and strong one: always try to focus on the positive parts of your current situation!
Focusing on the positives and being grateful for what we have is a great attitude to cultivate as it makes us live more in the present rather than wishing our time away, waiting for some future situation where everything will be rosy, which will never actually materialise: there will always be good and bad parts about any situation you find yourself in.
It doesn’t mean you can’t work hard to eliminate the negatives or to better your position in life. But, as far as I am aware, nobody I’ve ever met literally has the perfect life, and it is worth reminding ourselves of this fact regularly – especially if we start to get the little green (grass) monster of jealousy or envy boiling up inside us! 🙂
How about you?
When did you think the grass looked greener on the other side of the fence, only to discover it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be when you finally got there?
Notes:
- Assuming you hit your targets ↩
- I’m not sure if learned is the right word there? All I know is that I didn’t used to enjoy it all that much and now I kinda do. Weird! It may just be enjoying the satisfaction of completing a job well done and by myself rather than the actual process itself. I’m rambling again, back to the post please… ↩
Discussion (26) ¬
It’s got to be moving out from home for the first time. In true Kevin and Perry style you go on and on about how annoying your parents are and how it’ll be so much better when you have your own place and own space where you can have your mates round.
Then you get the council tax bill. Then the gas bill. And then the fridge isn’t always magically full of food or your clothes nicely ironed in your drawers. Suddenly you start to appreciate what your parent’s actually did for you without you realising it and maybe living on your own wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
I’m just embarked on step 7 myself. I swear I may as well have built a 15th century castle with the never ending list of maintenance jobs that keep cropping up! I think it’s human nature to try and find the negative in everything we do. We seem to love feeling sorry for ourselves, perhaps because we seem to get a grim sense of satisfaction from moaning about our lives to anyone who’ll listen. Like you said, you’ve got to focus on the positives, keep your eyes forward and keep on plodding.
Haha, that’s so true Fibrarian! You’ve nailed exactly what it’s like when you first move out.
Good luck with the ongoing DIY list as well, obviously I know what that feels like so can sympathise. Maybe one day you will come to enjoy that stuff as well 🙂
Yea it’s a weird phenomenom and even though I consider myself to be a mainly positive person I still find myself mulling over the negatives more often than I’d like. I’m finally going to get round to reading some of those buddhist style mindfullness books one day and THEN I’m sure I’ll be truly happy 😉
hi TFS! I must admit I was slightly worried by Jim McG’s top 10, even though I knew it was tongue in cheek, and it made me wonder if I’d miss my old job when I took the plunge. I don’t think so, but who knows? … Anyway, it is true dat about the human race that we never realise when we’ve got it good, or if we do we still focus on the negative stuff. It’s stupid in some ways, though I suppose it is part of what makes us good problem solvers.
Re your move to go part-time, I was reading some comments from some other FI-ers who had taken to working part-time three days a week as semi-retirement and they loved it!! They said it was the best. They had been doing it a while too, three or so years? … Time enough to get disgruntled if there was a downside, and they hadn’t. So I hope you find it the same.
I’m with you Cathybird! And even if someone else says things are great it doesn’t mean that you would feel the same in their situation anyway eh?
I like that you zoomed in on the positive side about being negative… that is awesome! Yes it’s our unending quest to keep improving things that makes us such good problem solvers and we wouldn’t be able to or have the motivation to do that unless we could spot the negative things to improve in the first place. Great insight!
Thanks for the last comment, I totally agree with you in that I think it will work very well for me. It’s like the best of both worlds really, you get the work and social office interaction etc and still get loads more time than the average person to do with what you wish.
But I will have to wait and see! Maybe I will still find that I still don’t have time to do all the things I want to do and “full FI” is the only way forward!? (In which case I will have shot myself in the foot by taking a big pay cut… 😮 )
Hi TFS,
I definitely suffer from this everynow and then. And a lot of the time it’s with work, other jobs always look so much more appealing. The idea of retraining as a carpenter is very appealing at the moment. This is in part because I like learning new things and have no real drive to get to a senior management position (the idea of moving further and further away from the doing just isn’t appealing)
“What the mortgage advisor won’t tell you though is that it’s a right old fucking ball-ache with a never ending list of chores to be done” – haha, this is true. But like you say, with the right mind set, it’s a chance to learn something new.
Mr Z
Haha, yes I’ve had many an idea of completely changing my career. My best one was to become a professional golfer – This before I ever even picked a club up *properly* by the way, oh the naivety! 🙂
The thing is I am 99.99% certain if I had to play golf every day I would be bored of it pretty quickly, although if you ever got really good at least you could reach FI with about 1 year of mediocre results on the PGA tour 😉
Cheers Mr Z!
Hey TFS, that was a fun read. Have to agree with Cathybird though, we often do not realise how good we’ve got it. Reading JimMcG’s new site was good, because his section on Keeping a Journal reminded me of how helpful that practice is. It helps us to remain grateful for things, because it allows reflection and contemplation. We have never had it so good, but the human heart is inexplicably evil and I’m sure we will continue to cause pain and suffering to our fellow humans… so let’s focus on a bit of gratefulness and screw that green grass malarkey. I am standing in lush meadow compared to the generations that went before me. We have nothing to complain about.
Cheers!
Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
Gratefulness journals sound like a great idea if you ever get yourself in a bit of a downward funk, and as you say a bit of zoomed out perspective of time/geography on how good we have things also never hurts.
Thanks for chipping in!
Hi TFS,
I have felt the green grass pangs in the past. I think it started off at Uni when I realised the course I was doing just wouldnt give me a job at the end. So I retrained and joined the IT crowd.
Once working at a great place, I looked at other jobs and thought they would be better – only to find out they have their own downsides once you are there – lol.
I am doing a FI ‘freedom break’ at the moment and people have the “GIAG” about my freedom but I also miss the workplace for daily conversation. I just need to find something else which will provide that stimulus. I think of all the negatives of working and that soon sorts me out 🙂
Semi-retired is my aim I don’t think its a “GIAG” feeling, I think its a good life balance, as you say there isn’t a perfect life. I will find out when I get there.
It is funny how we always how we tend to forget the negatives about past situations very easily as well isn’t it SparkleBee? 🙂
Good luck finding your balance, it sounds similar to what I am aiming for.
Cheers!
I still believe Financial Independence / ER is greener than having to work. Once you have Financial Independence, you’re just adding a choice, it is not a “one way” door.
Thanks for the link to “Sex Health Money Death”, yay, another good read to add to my collection 🙂
You are very right Stockbeard!
It’s all about options isn’t it?
Cheers!
> Financial Independence / ER is greener than having to work
Too right 🙂 Work is hugely overrated. Either that, or I’m the biggest slacker in town. Work just ain’t all that…
Haha, good to hear it’s just how I imagined it ermine. Thanks!
Hi TFS, thanks for the link and positive comments, much appreciated. For me, I get sentimental over past holidays, even when I vaguely recall that maybe they weren’t all that great! I liked your observation about travelling because I often think I should now be planning the world tour by camper van. Deep down I know it’s probably not for me because, as you say, it’s your relationships that count. Working on keeping those strong is one of the best things you can do with your time.
Anytime Jim!
I think I may re-develop my wanderlust when I get a bit older but for now I’m happy with discovering what’s on my doorstep in the UK, or at a push then Europe is so near and equally as nice. Beach holidays are nice but get old pretty quickly IMHO. And shorter travel times mean shorter breaks are a lot easier to arrange which suits me fine right now.
Agreed on keeping relationships strong, and that is hard to do when you are on the otherside of the world, I know now we have Skype etc… but it’s not quite the same as just sitting around and shooting the breeze over a pint/cup of tea is it?
Cheers!
I really enjoyed this post!
It’s all about perspective and being able to commend yourself for how far you’ve come. I’ve recently started researching to begin my journey to financial stability (hopefully) and I’m proud that I’m taking the initiative to do that for myself.
Thanks for the comment Jenna!
Yes there is nothing wrong with giving yourself some credit and enjoy the grass in your current location before feeling the itch to improve!
Cheers!