The grass is not always greener on the other side

It was a few years ago, and I still remember it vividly. In Grade 9, I started noticing something that made me feel small.

Everywhere I looked, someone seemed better than me. Someone had higher grades. Someone had more confidence. Someone had more friends. Walking the hallways always felt demeaning, it felt like walking through a highlight reel of everyone else’s success. From the outside, their lives looked polished and effortless, while mine just felt incomplete, like I could be better. 

I remember sitting in class one afternoon after a test was handed back out to me. Around me, people were jolly about their marks. Some pretended not to care. I quietly put my stuff away and told myself the same thing I had been for months. “The grass is greener on the other side.” 

It became a rather annoying habit, comparing, measuring, and doubting. If someone else succeeded, I took it as a personal attack, proof that I am beneath people. If someone looked confident, I assumed they have never doubted themselves or questioned their every move. I began comparing myself and my struggles to other’s strengths, and in that comparison, I not only lost, but I also lost any self – confidence I had.

But overtime, something changed in me, my mentality changed.

One day, I stayed at school after practice to finish up some work. A classmate who always seemed confident and ahead of everything stayed too. I gathered some courage to not only ask for help, but to go talk as well. For the first time, I heard the pressure behind perfection. Sure it took her some time to open up to me but I saw the real face behind the mask. She told me about the expectations at home, about sacrificing sleep for study, about the fear of disappointing people and overall disappointing herself. Her “effortless” success was anything but effortless.

That day was the day I learnt something beautiful and something that everyone should come to realize one day. “ Real growth only happens when you learn to stand on your own grass and nurture it, even if it doesn’t look perfect. Chase consistency, perfection will follow.”

Those few conversations showed mutual respect and are still stuck with me till this day. Then there were the other things I started noticing more. The friend who always used humor to distract himself with his struggles at home. The friend who was bound to go pro, admired by everyone destroying his career because he was struggling to get a hold on the balance between the student and the athlete. And my best friend who seemed nearly fearless in public confessing that she felt horribly anxious when alone.

Slowly the masks started to peel and I could finally see my closest friends for who they were after they started sharing.

I realized 2 things ; firstly, we as human beings are bound to create these facades and these fake masks for people around us to see while our real selves struggle in isolation. Secondly I had been comparing my face to their masks, my behind the scenes to their performance. I saw my doubts, my mistakes, my effort. But I only saw their results.

And that is when I began to understand that struggle is not failure, it’s growth. The challenges we all face in our lives, in school, at work, often our first reaction is frustration. We want things to come easier. We want progress without all the effort we put it in and all the pressure we face. But when I look back at all I achieved I wanna see the struggle because without struggle achievements are nothing. Those struggleful moments are what shape us as people, it’s those moments that build discipline for us to achieve even greater things in life. Without pressure, there is no progress. Without discomfort, there is no development.

The phrase  “ the grass is greener on the other side” says that somewhere, someone else has it better and easier than you. But greener grass often means more watering and more maintenance, more of the unseen nurturing no one knows about it.

In my opinion social media makes the illusion of masks even stronger. We scroll past achievements, vacations, smiles and awards. We see the results, not the hardships. We see victories, not vulnerability. And we compare our realities to their filtered moments creating a false story about our own worth.

I also think that being sheltered from difficulty can limit the growth, due to the lack of water, maintenance and the nurturing. If hardships are never experienced, growth is next to impossible. Protection from discomfort is also protection from strength.

Looking back I am grateful for the moments that once frustrated me, because strength is never accidental. The grass is not greener on the other side. It only appears from far away. Up close, every lawn has dry patches, weeds.

Struggle is not an obstacle placed in the path. It is the path.