The Grass is Not Greener

I don’t like to make resolutions at the new year. I already go through that exercise every fall, during Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and those days feel more spiritually meaningful to me than the Dropping of the Ball. Mostly, I can’t seem to get past the feeling that autumn is the true beginning of the year. I’m not a student anymore, or even a teacher, but one of my kids is still in school, and so, January feels like the mid-point of the year to me. I’m not sure that will ever go away.

Which is not to say that I made some big promises or resolutions this past fall, because I didn’t. I was too busy trying to get the kid situated at a new college and scrambling to find a new job to pay for said college, and dealing with knee surgery, and everything else. I was mired in day-to-day stuff; it was hard to lift my chin out of the muck to gaze at a far horizon. So, fine. It wouldn’t be the worst thing to do some resolution-izing now. Let’s go…

But nothing comes. I’m having trouble getting my mind to focus forward after a summer and fall of worry, anxiety, and disappointment. I don’t know if it’s the end of the year with its lack of warmth and light, or the post-election malaise, or just my aching back and the head-cold that won’t go away. I’m in a glum, Grinch-y place, and it’s time to move past it. I have to challenge the whole idea of “disappointment.” Maybe that’s the best resolution I can make.

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I talked about regret a little while ago—about resisting the temptation to obsess over roads not taken. That’s part of the problem, and I need to keep reminding myself that who I am, right now, is because of all the things I did back then. Do I regret those things? Mostly, I don’t. So, fine. Make peace with it.

Here in the present, I have a choice. I can be grateful for what I have, or I can stew in disappointment and dissatisfaction with what I don’t have. It seems like an easy choice when I write it that way, so…why is it hard?

I know that if I looked at my life by itself, objectively—without reminders of past dreams or aspirations, and without comparison to the status of friends or family members—I would be filled with gratitude.

My life hasn’t been a straight line or a predictable trajectory, as I’ve written about before. I’ve had several changes of course, changes of job, changes of home. I’ve consoled myself with the thought that every experience has taught me something, given me something I need for the next stage of the journey. And by and large, I think that’s been true.

I’ve been married to an amazing woman for 28 years—smart, strong, capable, funny, curious, and caring. We’ve bounced around from state to state and house to house, far more than either of us wanted to or anticipated. We’ve always found our way, and we’ve always done it together. Not everybody gets that.

We have two great kids, grown and starting their journeys in the world. They are smart, funny, and fiercely individual. They have resisted conformity and mediocrity in many ways, and they support each other’s dreams. They are strong and unique and full of love. What more could you want for your children?

I’ve kept a roof over our heads and put food on the table. I didn’t know that I’d be able to do that successfully, back when I stopped pursuing a life in the theater and took a job in educational publishing. It’s had its ups and downs over the years. The financial crisis hit us, like it hit so many people. The company I worked for folded, and I spent a year trying to find another job. We ended up having to move across the country and sell our house for less than we owed on it. We lost all of our equity, and have been renting ever since. But we’ve always had a home, and we’ve never gone hungry. That’s not true of everyone who came through that time.

I’ve had an interesting career in the Ed Biz, even if it’s a rocky and unpredictable place to work (“dynamic,” to be charitable), where businesses contract and expand, and I occasionally have to look for a new gig. That’s happened too often, and it’s scary. And yet, I’ve always found something. And I’ve done interesting and meaningful work with great people. I should be grateful. I should be grateful for all of it.

But instead, I look around and I feel dissatisfaction and disappointment. The work hasn’t really mattered or changed anything. Most of it isn’t used anywhere anymore. Some of what happened to me was unfair. No matter what I have, it’s always just barely enough. I can’t seem to do better for myself or for my family.

Maybe it’s because I’m getting older, and the horizon of “oh well, next time…” is not as vast as it used to be. I don’t know how many more “next times” I have. Instead of feeling grateful for having done well, I feel bitter about not having done better—or, at least, not having done as well as the people around me.

Why do we compare ourselves with people who have more? That’s madness. What matters is whether we have enough, not whether we have as much as someone else. And so many of us have so much more than others on this planet. If we kept that comparison in view, we’d say grace at every meal and upon waking every morning. As we should. As I should.

I try. But too often, I get sucked into looking over the fence at my neighbors. Looking across the table at my relatives. They’ve done the things. They’ve bought the stuff. They’ve gone to the places. I could have done all of that, if I had been doing the right things. I should have. But I failed.

Should have? Says who? Who says I should have done a particular thing, or done it better? Based on what? That’s conjuring up a complete fantasy based on how some other people live (viewed from a safe distance, without knowing any of the harsh details about their lives and pains and fears), and then saying it should have been my reality, instead of the reality I actually have. It utterly undermines and undervalues my own life, and overvalues (and likely misunderstands) someone else’s life. It’s stupid.

If I had lived a simpler, more linear life, with a single goal and a single trajectory to reach that goal, then maybe the measurement and the disappointment would be more merited. Maybe. If I had been trying consistently for X throughout my adult life, and had failed to attain X, then…maybe. But even that values a vague and arbitrary goal over a lifetime of actual experiences.

I’ve had to change course and recalibrate, again and again. That’s life. My life, anyway. So, why should I think of myself as a failure if I’m still here, still swimming (sometimes upstream, sometimes not), still warm and fed, still surrounded by loving people, and still doing interesting things?

In other words, shut up and say, “thank you,” dumbass.

That’s my resolution for 2025: more gratitude, less griping.

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