A Better Life isn't Made with Money, Fame or Things
The grass is never greener, despite what we think
“We are capable of bearing a great burden, once we discover that the burden is reality and arrive where reality is.” James Baldwin
No matter our circumstances as children, there seems to be one universal truth for all of us—we are anxious to escape, change, or get out from under our current conditions.
We think once we do, life will be better, easier.
We chase the dream of what our future is going to look like. We spend our teenage years yearning for something, then working towards achieving whatever our something might be.
For me, it was to get out and away from my house. I always felt like an outsider. I had a different last name from my mom, step-dad and step-brother which just made it all the more obvious to me. I never quite belonged.
Besides, it was a scary place. My mother’s mercurial anger could be set off by the smallest of things.
When I was at home, I spent most of my time in my room. Closeted away, listening to Donny Osmond records, rocking back and forth on my bed humming for comfort, reading, and when I was given a diary, writing.
SEARCHING FOR A PATH FORWARD
It was on a family holiday to Vancouver Island when I was 12 years old and we visited the University of Victoria where the vision of where I wanted to be and what I wanted to do was crystallized.
I wanted to be a writer. It would set the stage for the trajectory of my life for the next 10 years.
The lush green campus by the ocean with its canopy of trees in the common’s square reflecting the summer light, dappling off the lawn where a few students were sitting reading felt like home.
I wandered into the library which anchored the magical space outside. I was overcome with its vastness. Floors and floors of books which seemed never-ending. A place to get lost in.
I remember the smell. Musky, like being deep in the forest and yet tinged with the smell of carbon from the type written index cards and the rows of wooden boxes, with initials and numbers on the front them.
I wonder if libraries still smell that way?
FACE TO FACE WITH REALITY
While as teenagers we often dream about escaping our circumstances, what happens when we arrive at our destination? And at our core, nothing has changed? We haven’t magically been transported into a better life? In fact, what if when we arrive at our stated destination, and the only thing we discover, is our life gets more complicated, not less?
I was reminded of this when reading
’s memoir, Acceptance. Nietfield was in and out of mental health facilities and foster homes as a child.She is determined to change her station in life and successfully receives a full-ride scholarship to Harvard. Her relief is short-lived.
On arrival she realizes it hasn’t magically transformed or changed her. It’s a shock after years of believing it will be the ticket out of her own private hell.
As James Baldwin puts it “we are capable of bearing a great burden,” by accepting, or arriving where reality is.
It’s when we finally stop trying to achieve we can un-peel the layers of reality we’ve been avoiding. Many of us for decades.
For us over-achiever’s this usually takes many different forms. We succeed at the first thing, “nope, that doesn’t quite cut it,” so we move to the next achievement, goal, destination, and the next and the next. Until we are so tired of striving and achieving, we are forced to stop and take a beat to assess what’s been staring us in the face all along—our inner reality.
Unlearning this myth we’re told when we’re younger, “if you work hard, become successful, your life will be easier” is more nuanced and complex than our younger brains can compute.
It’s hard not to be disappointed when you bought into the notion that the “grass is greener.” Emi meets many wealthy and privileged people once she arrives at Harvard.
She quickly realizes they don’t all have their shit together just because they have money, homes, or their parents have power. It’s all a façade. A mirage.
Status and fame come with their own set of problems. The ache and churn to constantly keep up the status you have.
The panic as the limelight fades.
TAKE ME AWAY
When I was in my early 30’s with a husband, home and three small kids, I had what I wanted. Yet, I also wanted desperately to escape my life, if only for a moment. My idea was to go on a trip far away.
My old therapist Neil told me “It won’t matter where you are. You’ll still be the same person when you get there.”
I didn’t understand what he was telling me. I was too young. I was convinced it would help me. Surely, if I was just in Greece, even for a few weeks, I would feel better—my life would be better when I got back.
I never went to Greece. In the end, I stayed home and started the long process of working through my shit.
This involved therapy and learning how to reach out and ask for help. Remarkably, this took a very long time to learn. My “homework” was to call him daily, in between our sessions.
Often I didn’t have anything to say, so I honestly didn’t see the point. He would chide me at our next session if I hadn’t done my homework.
Years later, he asked me if I had any idea why he asked me to call him every day.
“No,” I said.
“You needed to learn how to reach out, Kim. You needed to learn how to ‘do with.’”1
Ultimately, the change you want comes from the inside. And that, my friend, can take a lifetime to figure out. But don’t feel you need to do it alone. Reach out, ask for help, ‘do with.’
Your life will be better for it. I promise.
What say you?
What was your dream as a kid? Did you want to escape?
Any big realizations once you achieved your biggest dream or goal?
Was there a time when you were faced with reality and you didn’t like what you saw? What did you do?
I wrote about this in more detail in an earlier post from my first few months on Substack. You can find it here.
I'm not sure whether it matters if you get some or all of what you wanted from life or you didn't. You learn either way. I am 82 and really like being an older woman. I like it so much, I wrote a book about it, called The Granny Who Stands on her Head: Reflections on growing older. The point is that by my age, you really know who you are, are comfortable in your own skin and just say what you think. I don't know why it takes a lifetime to reach this point, but it does. Perhaps a bit of compensation when you don't have so many years left.
The grass is greener….over the septic tank. From Erma Bombeck, years ago