The Grass is Always Greener

I've been talking to a friend who makes ridiculous demands on life - in other words, a man after my own heart.  Not surprisingly, he gets frustrated by life as a result.  I used to tell him how to counteract this tendency with the results that you might expect.  People love being told how they're doing it wrong and they love being told how to do it right, especially from a guy like me.

I'm a brother in arms with this dude.  I ask a lot of my life, too, and I'm not going to sit idly and watch life pass me by.  I don't think there's anything wrong with that.  I don't think there's anything wrong with being frustrated that I don't get to do it all.  The Grass is Always Greener is a well known aphorism for very good reasons - people wonder what it would be like if they were doing it differently.  

When SuperK and I travel I do a lot of the planning.  I compile a big list of  activities that I want included on our docket and sit quietly while she crosses off half of them with a big, red magic marker.  It used to make me mad when she did this until the one time she didn't and we followed my . . . um . . . ambitious schedule and we nearly killed ourselves.  We got to see a lot while not enjoying most of what we saw because we were rushing off to shortchange the next site.

My dream residence is a spacious, old apartment with lots of character and all new, modern appliances, the front door opening onto a busy thoroughfare in a cool, big city, the back door opening onto a beautiful garden with a nice view of the mountains and the ocean AND the desert AND AND AND etc. etc. etc.

If I felt like telling my friend what to do - which I feel like doing - I'd say make a list of what you want out of life; prioritize it; then cross off the bottom 50% of the things on the list.  You're still not going to get half of what's left.  My eyes are bigger than my stomach.

If I'm not happy with what I've got then I'm not going to be happy with what I want.