Is the Grass Really Greener on the Other Side?
So, I think a good transition from keeping it real would be to talk about our true alcoholic thought processes, those of which don’t just go away as soon as you get sober. For me, it has taken action and a lot of it, to allow my thought processes, patterns, and actions come to the surface so that I can try to do something different with them. Something for me that keeps coming up is when things just never seem to be good enough. All things: me, you, life, my house, my marriage, my possessions, my dogs’ behavior, my job, the business, our employees, the vehicles, how slow Wal-Mart is, the food choices in this town, THIS town, the list could go on and on.
So, let’s get into the nitty gritty of it and get REAL. I’ve written a blog on how I have struggled my whole life with the “not good enough” images of myself, but when I really sit down and think about it, I can feel that way about literally everything else in my life. Especially if I start comparing myself and my life to those around me. That’s when I really get in trouble. I’ve been taught time and time again to never compare myself to others, with anything, especially with anything in recovery. My sponsor would always tell me “you are right where you are supposed to be”. UGH. Don’t I know it. I can look at myself and tell myself that I’m not pretty enough, my hair should be thicker and longer, I should be skinnier, my skin should be less wrinkled, I should be more flexible, less awkward, be able to sing, play an instrument, be smarter, blah, blah blah. Crazy right? But isn’t that the reality of how pretty much all humans can think from time to time?
Then I go to everything else: my recovery, my job, where I am at in life, the fact that I don’t have kids yet, our house, our vehicles, our clothes, our possessions, our company, my marriage, everything can be compared to someone or something else. So, why do we do this? Human nature, I suppose. The sins of the world that are trying to cover the fact that we are all children of God, would be another good way of describing it.
Looking back, I used to feel this way when I was in active addiction, but the easy part of that was I could just drink and not think about it anymore (until that quit working, so I would just cry about it instead). Then when I was newly sober, I used to compare my recovery to other’s recovery, however I quickly learned that the reality is that I don’t necessarily want other people’s recovery, no matter how good I think it looks from the outside. I need to go through what I need to go through for a reason, whatever it is and however long or slow the process is.
So, is the grass really greener on the other side or is it just an illusion, a trick of the mind? What is the other side? Is that someone else’s life, is that the life we think we should be living in the next year, or a life that seems nearly impossible? For me, sometimes I will look at someone else’s life and think maybe I should be where they are right now, or they seem to really have it going on and have this whole life thing figured out, but what I forget to think about is all the life struggles that we don’t see or hear about from these people. We ALL have problems. You know it, I know it, we all know it. So, would I really want to trade my life with someone else just because I think they have it all figured out, but then when the trade actually happens, I come to find that I get all their issues, struggles and problems too? I once heard that if we all laid out our problems on a table, if we had the choice, we would always go pick up our own problem again, because really, we don’t want to deal with anyone else’s.
So first, I have to give myself and little slack and remind myself that I am only human. Next, I remember I am a child of God and my life is exactly how it is supposed to be in this very moment. Then I will choose to pray for all those out there that are having struggles that we just don’t know about. Confess, forgive, empty and fill. What I choose to fill my life with today is living in the here and now. Not to look to where I think I should be or what I think I should be doing, but staying present in today and to always remain grateful, reflecting on where I used to be. Don’t get me wrong, my husband and I still have hopes and dreams today, but they are OUR dreams, not someone else’s. I will have faith in my God who has brought me to exactly where I need to be and will continue to be with me through this journey of MY life. I will also continue to put forth the action that I need to take to continue to work on myself, which can only come from working MY program, not anyone else’s.
