Common sense has put in its papers. We can call it the Great Resignation!
We’re living in the age of perpetual dissatisfaction. Your college friend just posted about their “life-changing” move to Bali. Your LinkedIn feed is a never-ending parade of people who “took the leap” and “never looked back.” Your cousin’s startup just got funded. Your ex just got promoted.
And you? You’re standing in your yard, staring at literally everyone else’s grass.
Here’s the reading between the lines though: that grass over there? It’s mostly filter, fertilizer, and fiction.
The job that looks perfect from LinkedIn? It comes with a boss who micromanages breathing patterns. The “digital nomad lifestyle”? It’s glamorous until you’re fighting with customer service in a language you don’t speak because your laptop died and took your livelihood with it. The relationship that seems effortless? They’re just better at hiding the arguments about whose turn it is to unload the dishwasher.
And you still go…the grass is greener…
Time to stop playing victim. The problem isn’t your job, your city, your relationship, or your circumstances. The problem is you’ve been a terrible gardener.
Irrespective of your mailing address, imagine you getting a telegram from your self twenty years into the future. What would the content on it say?
Highly unlikely that it would be saying ” Dude, you should’ve compared yourself to more people on social media.” I am betting that it wouldn’t be saying “Man, I wish we’d jumped ship more often.” It is safe to guess what it would be saying- it would say something like: “That thing you had? It was pretty good. Wish you’d noticed while you were living it.”
The grass isn’t greener on the other side. It’s greener where you point the damn hose.
No sermon here please. So, certainly I am not telling you to stop dreaming, stop wanting more, stop aspiring to better things.
Some grass is dying. Some jobs are toxic. Some relationships are over. Some cities are wrong for you. I’m not suggesting you water dead grass—I’m suggesting you learn the difference between grass that needs water and grass that needs burial.
The question isn’t “Should I stay or should I go?” The question is “Have I actually tried?”
Have you watered this grass? Have you fertilized it? Have you given it morning sunlight and afternoon shade? Have you protected it from pests and pulled the weeds?
Or have you just stood here, looking over the fence, wondering why everyone else’s yard is better?
The moment you start watering, you stop comparing. The moment you stop comparing, you start growing.
And the moment you start growing, you look back and realize the grass was always good enough—you were just too busy staring at fences to notice.
Now put down your phone, pick up your watering can, and tend to what you’ve got.
The grass is waiting. And it’s thirstier than you think.
The question here is a no-brainer. When did we all stop tending our own lawns?
Professionally, personally, emotionally — we’re always peeking over the fence.
The neighbour has a better brand, a shinier title, a more “creative” team, a dog that poses better on Instagram. (Dogs, by the way, never compare lawns. They own every patch.)
Let’s be honest — we’ve outsourced joy to geography.
We tell ourselves that happiness, opportunity, or meaning lives elsewhere. Another company. Another relationship. Another city. Another start-up.
But the truth is brutally simple: greener doesn’t mean better; it means watered.
When you show up every day for your own patch — even with a leaky hose, muddy shoes, and patchy sunshine — something remarkable happens. Grass doesn’t just grow; gratitude grows.
Ideas root deeper. Work feels less like a pilgrimage for applause and more like play. And slowly, your patch stands out — not because it’s smoother, but because it’s real.
So, forget the neighbor’s lawn. Your grass is waiting for a drink. Euphemism NOT intended!
We don’t look for inspiration anymore. We look for irrigation.
It’s not about blind positivity or settling for less. It’s about a strategic shift from coveting to cultivating. Perhaps it’s time to trade your binoculars for a watering can. Stop staring at other people’s gardens. Every minute spent in envy is a minute not spent watering your own plot. Redirect that energy. Inward.
The universe doesn’t hand out green lawns. It hands out seeds, soil, and a whole lot of weather. The greenness—the joy, the success, the peace—is entirely dependent on the gardener. On you.
Stop looking over the fence. Your own patch of earth is right beneath your feet, desperate for a drink. Go on. Water it.
We humans practice selective amnesia. It’s a craft that we have mastered.
Lest we forget; Everyone wants greener grass. Almost no one wants to drag the hose.
Everyone wants the bloom. Few are willing to stand through the muddy season.
Everyone wants the “overnight success” but conveniently skips the fact that night is usually 5,000 days long.
The “other side” is a mirage built on maintenance.
Here’s an inspiring example- none other than The Beatles. Before the world screamed, “Beatlemania!”, they were four broke lads sweating it out in Hamburg’s smoky nightclubs, playing 7-hour sets to half-drunk sailors.
Those nights were the watering.
The concerts, the Grammys, the hysteria — just the spring bloom.
We live in a time where people Photoshop even their productivity.
Everything’s curated, cropped, filtered, optimized for engagement. Here’s the much overlooked curveball though- the deeper you water your roots, the less you need to market your leaves. Because authenticity is the only fertilizer that works long-term.
Water, water, everywhere….
Water your curiosity — it grows wisdom.
Water your gratitude — it grows joy.
Water your craft — it grows credibility.
Water your relationships — they grow roots.
Everything else is weather. Period. Because, every dream dies of dehydration before it dies of doubt.
If you hate the process of watering, you’ll never stick with it. Find a way to love the act of tending to your own life. The satisfaction of getting better, the peace of routine, the quiet pride of building something that is authentically yours. Find the joy in the gardening itself.
So. That pristine grass you’re coveting? It’s probably AstroTurf. And even if it’s real, you’re not seeing the back-breaking labor, the fertilizer (metaphorical and otherwise), and the sheer number of dead patches they’ve carefully cropped out of the frame.
The ancient, overused, and profoundly misunderstood proverb needs a 21st-century upgrade. The grass isn’t greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it. And it is hose good as it gets!