With the recent increasing popularity of home gardening, a guy decided to buy some plants. He probably saw some of his friends’ update on Instagram. Most of people were trying to be more comfortable at home in 2020. He contribute to the rising online-search of some popular plants like monstera and caladium.
So he got excited when he got his plants at home. He took quite a lot of pictures so he can show it on his socials. Well, plants are probably getting you more likes and comments. Weeks passed by. Working From Home (WFH) are still making him busy. It’s not easy to differentiate the time for work and the time for pleasure. He picked up his phone and checked his Instagram. He was quite often curious how most of his friends’ plants were shinier. Some of them even started to grow new branch. He took a look on his plants. He was quite upset because his plants colour was fading.
As long as he could remember, he routinely took care of his plants. But, still he was envy with his friends’ plants. They were far more instagrammable. They even put a hashtag: #nofilter. He started to think to buy newer plants, which already getting more and more expensive because of the increasing popularity. While busy looking for “better” plants, sometimes he forgot to take care of his own plants. So, his plants were starting to withering.
“Well, I can just buy a new one so my social feed will still be cool.” That’s what he thought. So, there he went. He kept buying more and more new shiny plants. But, he’s still envying his friends’ plants.
Did you see any pattern on that anecdote?
I looked back to some of my past decisions and try to reflect to recent situations. I think that was also me few years ago when I was taking more time to be envy. I find it’s hard to navigate that enviousness to something better. At least, for me. How about you?
I am still lucky that I have got more time to read in the past six months. I guess reading helps me to think more and learn more about myself. I am trying to actually answer the question:
What is this situation trying to teach me?
One of great reference I read recently is from Charlie Munger. The famous partner of Warren Buffet. If you believe in sins, I think his opinion has a value to think about. He said:
“Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?”
So, I continue to try to take a bit deeper look on all infamous seven deadly sins. I try to see if it’s true that envy is the only one with no fun.
- Lust. Well, it’s closely related to sexual desire. There should be some fun in it.
- Gluttony. It was actually from Latin world “gula”. Yeah, I like food.
- Greed. Yeah, there is some fun in getting more of what you like. Or getting more gain in things you do.
- Sloth. Laying in bed with no responsibility? Yeah, most people will sign up for that.
- Wrath. I believe everyone has the right to be angry at some point. It’s not healthy to keep bottling our emotion. Though, it’s not easy to control.
- Pride. Who doesn’t like to show-off?
So, let’s go back to envy. It’s some feeling that I think we build by our self. Cambridge dictionary defines it as “to wish that you had something that another person has.” Oxford defines it as a a feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck. I got to agree with Charlie with his stance on envy. Because most of the times, it’s ourself that keep feeding the envy inside us. And again, it’s not easy to navigate the envy to something good or even remotely fun. Some references from Bible even believe that envy is the motivation behind Cain murdering his brother, Abel.
So, yeah, maybe the wisdom is true that the grass is always greener on the other side. But, we can try to take a look from another perspective to answer the question “where is the greener grass?”
I would like to thank @LizAndMollie once more for their simple yet strong illustration on this perspective.
The grass will always greenest where you water it.
I hope we can learn to be busier watering our own grass so it will be greener.
Wishing you a green and refreshing weekend!
If you like to read more about envy and jealousy, I would recommend this essay on Farnam Street blog:
Mental Model: Bias from Envy and Jealousy, 8 minutes reading time.
