Is the grass always greener ?

I know that I've read this some place before, so I don't want to take credit for it, but I'm going to put my little spin on it, and I do think that this is worth repeating, and that is the topic of the grass is always greener. In the strength sports sector, I can't begin to even count or think back to the number of times that I've had top level bodybuilders tell me about the drama and bullshit that goes on in their sport, and how much better power lifting is. On the flip side of that, power lifters saying the same time in regards to body buildings, the strong man.

It really doesn't matter what end of the spectrum you're on, when you speak to a lot of these guys, or at least, when I speak to a lot of these guys, I hear the same things over and over. Being that my roots are in the powerlifting side, what I typically hear is coming from the other sports, them saying, "Man, I can't believe how awesome power lifting is, the community is amazing, the sport is amazing, it's nothing like Bodybuilding, or it's nothing like Strong man." That their sport has all this drama, politics, and criticism, you name it.

Then, in many cases, some of these guys do come over to powerlifting, and more likely than not, within a year, usually less, they find that the same shit exists there, in power lifting, than it does in bodybuilding and wherever else you are.

That the grass isn't greener like they thought it was going to be, and like they told me at that time. The fact of the matter is the grass is never greener on the other side.

If you're in an airplane flying through the Midwest, and you look down, you see all the different fields, and you see one field that's green, one field that's not.

From a distance, you might see a yard that looks greener than the yard next to it. That's life, that's a fact of life, you're going to look at it and say man, that yard is better. Once you get down into the yard, and start looking around, you find out that yard has weeds, too. It has places where the grass doesn't grow. It's got places where there's weeds. It's got dog shit, snakes, snake holes. It's got all the same shit all the other yards do.

What I think people seem to miss, here, is instead of looking to see whose yard is better, or the grass is greener on the other side, maybe they need to look at their own yard a little bit closer and see what is there. What is in their own personal yard. I think when they start looking around, they're going to find that their yard isn't that fucking great, and neither is the others. Everybody has, all sports have their own problems.

There's a lot of issues associated that go into this, for one, the perception of the problem. The individual who thinks there is a problem, that same probably to somebody who's been in the sport 10 years is not even a problem, it's not even on their radar. To somebody who's only been in the sport a couple years, it's a major fucking dilemma. What's different with the individual and how long the individual has been in the sport.

Their perception of this problem is completely different, yet, it's still the same issue. The issue hasn't changed, the perception of the issue has.

That, I think, bears some thinking and some self awareness on the lifter's part to take inventory and to take stock of their own perception, and the story that they're telling in their own heads on what this problem is, if it even is a problem.

The other thing is if they don't feel that the sport they're in is great, and all they ever talk about is the negative aspects of the sport, all they do is bitch and complain about the politics or the judging or lifters who are better than they are. There's guys who are all part of this same strength sport industry, so I don't have to list every single issue from every single sport that people bitch about. You guys know what I'm talking about, you see it every single day, you may be the ones that are bitching about it. I wounder why in the fuck are these people still in to the sport if it's SO bad. Why be a part of something you hate so much? Maybe, they (you) are staying for a reason. Why not embrace that?  If not than leave...

What I want to get to here, and what I want to stress is many times, those people that see all these complaints, and they're the ones complaining about it, they think this sport is awful, it's terrible and it's going nowhere. Then, they jump ship and they go to another strength sport, they find the same things. There's critics. They have haters, you know, when they're in one of the sports. When I say haters, everybody is going to have their degree of haters. I think we all get that. Some people have a lot more haters than others.

The fact of the matter is, if you have a lot more haters than everybody else, there might be a reason for it. You might be a dickhead, so that kind of bears some thinking on yourself, because there's a lot of really good people in all different types of strength sports, and yes, they have their haters, but they're nowhere near to the level of some of the other guys who constantly are bitching about having their haters. Well, maybe they have them because they deserve them.

On that realm, getting back to the grass is always greener, if you're one of these people who that drama follows them from one strength sport to another strength sport, or, let's just take it out of strength sports entirely, let's just say the drama follows them from one job to the next job, to the next job, and every job they have has the same drama over and over and over, maybe, maybe you need to look at your own yard when you're talking about the grass being greener on the other side, because maybe you don't know how to take care of your own fucking grass. Just because you have a plot of land doesn't mean you know how to care for it.

If you have space in the grass, and dandelions, and weeds, and your yard looks like shit, the only reason your yard looks like shit is because you're not doing the things that you need to do on a daily basis to tend to your yard, to make your yard better. You need to lay the right seeds, let the seeds grow, tend to the seeds, and care for your lawn.

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