The Illusion of Greener Grass: Embracing Our Own Reality and the Global Community of Listeners

Ever catch yourself eyeing someone else's lawn, wondering how they keep it so lush? We're peeling back the layers of the "Illusion of Greener Grass" to explore why it's easy to fall into the trap of coveting another's life. With every scroll through social media or overheard story, we confront the shiny facades that tempt us with promises of more fulfilling possessions, opportunities, and relationships. But is it all just a mirage? Join us as we discuss the importance of embracing our own messy, wonderful reality and learn why watering our own grass might be the secret to a more vibrant life.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Illusion of Greener Grass
• 14:32 Sharing Thoughts and Appreciation

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The grass is greener on the other side. Have you heard that saying? Definitely heard it many, many, many a time. We don't know if you've heard it, but that's what we're going to be talking about in this week's episode of Get Real With the English Sisters the grass is green, yeah. Why is it? Yeah, why is it that when we look over that fence and we always think that whatever the other person has seems to be better than what we have? That's what it actually means. Yeah, it doesn't take for those who may not have heard of it. It means that whatever's on the other side, whatever someone else has, is better than what you've got, yeah, or not only what someone else has, all the things in general, all the opportunities.

Speaker 1: 0:48

You might be teaching in England. You're saying, oh well, I could have had that teaching job in Spain, for example. That's a good point. You're never quite satisfied with what you have because something else, or perhaps someone else, seems to be better for you. It seems to be shinier, yes, and what we're going to get at today, I think, is that that grass is greener on the other side. It could be an illusion, an illusion, or it could be fake grass, like that fake plastic grass, you might have the real grass, so it might just be an illusion. On all fronts, this grass is greener. Yeah, I think the same public came because if people wanted to have green grass, didn't they? They wanted to have the perfect lawn, yes, but how did they get that perfect lawn? I wonder? Yes, how did they get that perfect lawn? I wonder? Yes, because they watered it. They watered it and they tended to and they took care of it and they put a lot of hard work into it. Most likely, unless they're like these really, really rich people that have, like masses of gardeners or whatever. But then again, something happened behind the scenes that you're not aware of how the business was built, perhaps, perhaps it took years of sacrifice, or sometimes even inherited money has its pain behind it A lot. So, yes, so how do we really know? Is that grass really greener, you know, or is it?

Speaker 1: 2:11

I think most of the time it's an illusion, because I think if we take the time to water our own grass, exactly, it would be just as green and luscious and grow just as well. Exactly what we're trying to do, by thinking that somewhere else, someone else, is better, is we're falling into a bit of a trap really, and it's a dangerous trap to be because it's always going to make us feel unsatisfied. The feeling of not having enough or not being enough can be very devastating. Yeah, and I think also, maybe, if not like the feeling of, say, looking over, if you've got like friends that say really what you consider to be really lovely relationships, yeah, and then you might look at your own relationship and wish I wish my partner would do that, yes, I wish they would be like that. Yeah, why aren't they like that? Why don't they do that? Why aren't they so sweet and loving? Yeah, you're always wanting something else. Instead of watering the actual relationship that you do have and cultivating and communicating with that person, expressing your, you're comparing them to someone else. That's a very difficult comparison and you're never satisfied with what you have Exactly. You never actually want what you have, which apparently is a secret to happiness to want what you already have.

Speaker 1: 3:37

And how many people like this you know it's a very large population live like this with the grass is greener kind of syndrome. We want to call it a syndrome? I would think it definitely is. I think you have to be aware of it because it is like a syndrome. It can come up, it can pop up into your life and it can just sort of radiate in all kind of different aspects from work, from work, from how much someone else earns to how much you're earning, to how, to what you look like compared to someone else Exactly. Why can't I be like that Blah blah.

Speaker 1: 4:13

The clothes they have you don't have. It's endless, endless about anything. It's so tiring, isn't it? It's exhausting, exhausting and a lot of the time it's fake. What you're seeing is fake. It could be on social media. That's fake. It's like the green grass. That's fake. It's plastic. No wonder it looks so brilliant. It's literally fake. So it's not always real. This grass we're imagining to be so beautiful and those people's lives that we see in the reels and everything is oh, beautiful, sunset, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, it's fake. It's fake.

Speaker 1: 4:53

So why do you really want to go there, to this fake land? Yeah, when you've got a real land that you need to cultivate, you need to look after and water it, and it will be beautiful, with all its imperfections. I must say, all its imperfections, all its imperfections make it perfect For you. For you, yes, they make it perfectly imperfect, just the right way that humans are designed to live in a bit of a chaos, like nature is chaos. There is chaos all around us and we try and fit it all in and make it all so shiny and perfect. Yes, and it's not.

Speaker 1: 5:35

Life does have its imperfections. It's hassles, it's bustles and everything else it's messy. It's messy, yes, and a lot of the times what you have, if you have messy and messy life, and then you might look at your best friend and think, oh, their life's perfect and it's not really. It's just that a lot of the times they're not telling you what's really going on. Maybe sometimes they're not even aware of it themselves. They haven't got to that emotional intelligence to actually identify it. Yeah, you're absolutely right about that as well. It's getting away from the comparison. I think they're kind of these, the people that do that, that might not say, if they don't talk frankly to you, if you've got a best friend and I know someone close to me that does that and they don't actually share, they don't share the really messy parts of their life. No, they just share all the lovely, shiny parts, right, the good things, so the good things. So really, you don't really know what's going on. You might think, oh, they've got a perfect life, but they haven't really. It's just they're not sharing the messy things, and that's so common, and they're hiding it to their friends and they're also hiding it to themselves in a way.

Speaker 1: 6:46

Absolutely yeah, the truth about what's actually really going on in your life can be quite disarming. You know, if you actually tell someone about it, they can be quite like, oh, what Gosh, you know? And then they might start, you know, lowering their armor as well and discussing it. That is one way to and opening up. Opening up, yeah, because a lot of the times when you open up that, they open up too. And then you might see that grass and you might think, wow, it's just just the same as my grass. It is nourishing too. Yeah, it is, it's a bit yellow.

Speaker 1: 7:25

The truth is that we all have to nourish our relationships, I think, and a lot of us neglect them. Yes, the thing that we're supposed to nourish the most is the thing that gets most neglected, I think. Right, yeah, sad isn't it? Yeah, we do. We should really be investing so much energy, so much of our time on nourishing our relationships, cultivating our friendships, but in the end we spend like eight hours or whatever, cultivating our work relationships, and I wish it's obviously important. You are cultivating, you need to work and you need to eat and then survive and but yeah, I think you do need to realise that the rest of it's very important as well, obviously. Work-life balance. Once again, it is so important and I think the most of us we do rush, rush, rush, rush around and just thinking that other people's lives are so great and shiny and we've been like hard done to. That's a classical thing, isn't it?

Speaker 1: 8:34

Like I was thinking just before you get married, you know, you have those nerves and you think, gosh, he's that the right person, you know. And you might be thinking, oh, I had that other boyfriend years ago. He was really sweet. I mean, I remember thinking that and, and you know, years have passed and I do not regret having chosen my husband and we've been together for like what is it 35 years now? So it's been incredible. But I did have a moment when I did think the grass was greener on the other side and, and I do remember, your boyfriend at the time actually said you can't remember this. And then he said those, the grass is always greener on the other side. And I thought, gosh, you know what I think he's right, you know.

Speaker 1: 9:22

And then I went and I analyzed it a little bit. You know this other person that seemed to be, oh, this romantic, this person that would read all these interesting books, whereas compared to my intellectual much more intellectual he was very pragmatic, you know, like a businessman, what you know. He appeared that way at the time because then afterwards he revealed himself to have this artistic side of him as well. So you never really know, but it's your husband you're talking about. Yeah, of course, yeah, my husband. But the time, you know, there was another like contender, that was very intellectual, yeah, kind of intellectual, and he sort of got me on that side. You know, I was slightly wooed by this other person.

Speaker 1: 10:06

I was thinking am I doing the right thing here, you know, getting married, committing, and then when your boyfriend, you know, he said, oh, the grass is always green on the side, that's actually what made me decide and think what am I doing? Why am I trying to look for something else that's perfect, that appears to be perfect but isn't? Because then, when I went into it further, I saw lots of aspects of this personality that I didn't really like. And, yeah, you could do this forever, like always think no, I'm not going to commit because it might not be the right person, and then you never commit though, do you no? And you never actually start watering that grass and start, I think, in order to commit is you have to start watering you do you actually have to sort of put the effort. It's not just something that I commit to you and then you're not going to water. The relationship no, no, there were any relationship.

Speaker 1: 10:57

Any grass, as we all know, needs water, sun. You know love and care. You need to look after the grass, you need to cut it and whatever, push it, put fertilizer. You know the good kind, the good kind, and it needs, it needs all of that the same way we do and our relationships do. I think if we just spent 10% more time nourishing our own relationships, the grass would get so green. Yeah, we could just ignore everyone else's grass and just be happy and jumping up and down Barefoot on our own grass and enjoying life to the fullest, exactly, you know, and just appreciating that grass of ours that we have, because it's the grass that you actually already have and a lot of people they don't realize until it's gone that I should have missed it. Yeah, that's so true. When there is no more grass and there's just hard cement left there, then you think, ah, that wasn't that bad, you know. So take care of it. That was lovely. Take care of your own grass. Let us know what you think, if you ever had it where you thought something else was more attractive or shiny, more green.

Speaker 1: 12:11

Yeah, yeah, you've been tempted into thinking I'm going to go somewhere else, do something else. I mean, sometimes it might be for the great, you know, for the great, obviously. But I think the thing is here is to reason, to take the action, but not stay with the wanting. If you want the teaching position in Spain, like I was giving that example, go for it. Don't stay in the UK moaning and groaning. Find an opportunity to get there and actually take the action. I say, do that.

Speaker 1: 12:43

You know, if you really are finding yourself all the time thinking about if it's a long yearning, you should definitely do it. Long yearning, that's the point. Yeah, I think you have to analyse, you have to be fancy. Yeah, do you think a lot of people just have these five really fancy things and they just leave them always? And no, I think it's when you glamourise the grass it's green on the other side and you glamourise that teaching position, you glamourise it's going to be sunny there.

Speaker 1: 13:10

But if it's a yearning that you've had for a long time and you've done your due diligence, as they say, and you've checked it out, you've checked where you live, what you do, how you do it, the reality of it, the reality of it you can't understand the language you don't know. You know you might find that really beautiful challenge, well, great. But if you think, oh, I don't think, you know, no, maybe that's, I'm not that cut out for that. Yeah, yeah, so true, so true. You could be, it could be your perfect opportunity and then you should go for it.

Speaker 1: 13:40

But, yes, I think, when you stay in that the state of always thinking that the grass is green on the other side but you don't do anything about it yeah, I think that's where it's really infested, it's like malignant, malignant, yeah Then it's a real syndrome, because then you're not watering your own grass and you're not going and taking action and going to the greener grass. No, you're not, you're just nowhere in no man's land. If you decide that you're like you know the shepherds that move their sheep to the greener pastures. Yes, go for it. Go for it, go to the green, but don't have this longing that the grass is always green on that side without watering your own grass. Yeah, it just makes you feel unhappy all the time, and it's if you're unfulfilled and it's sad because you really could be jumping up and down in your own grass here. No pun intended.

Speaker 1: 14:32

Have fun and let us know what you think about this episode, and do check a few moments to comment. On Spotify there's an actual comment section now and on YouTube too, and on Apple podcast, please do go and leave a review and thank you for all of those that do leave reviews. We do appreciate you so much, and the podcast that she hit the Taiwan charts is wow. And Korea, so thank you. Big hello to you all there. They listened from there and the US and then London and everywhere. Really, lots of love. Bye bye from there, english sisters. Bye bye, english sisters, bye, bye.