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Keeping up With the Joneses: The Grass Is Always Greener

  • Writer: Deric Hollings
    Deric Hollings
  • 2 days ago
  • 6 min read

 

Do you find that comparison is the thief of joy, as you covet (desire what belongs to another, inordinately or culpably) the possessions or lived experience of other individuals? If so, you aren’t alone. In fact, there’s an expression regarding such behavior, as one source states:

 

“Keeping up with the Joneses” is an idiom, or popular phrase, that refers to the pressure to “keep up” with your neighbor’s social status, wealth, or popularity. It refers to the way people constantly compare themselves to a neighbor and strive to accumulate the same material goods.

 

When coveting what others have, how do you feel (i.e., what is your emotional and sensational outcome)? When contemplating this matter, I think of the psychotherapeutic modality I practice, as well as a book that I’ve been steadily reading.

 

As Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) is informed by Stoic philosophy, this blog entry is part of an ongoing series regarding a book entitled The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman.

 

Generally, the people with whom I’ve worked, when providing psychoeducational lessons on REBT throughout the years, don’t feel well when keeping up with the Joneses. Regarding this topic, authors of The Daily Stoic quote ancient Stoic Marcus Aurelius who stated (page 155):

 

Don’t set your mind on things you don’t possess as if they were yours, but count the blessings you actually possess and think how much you would desire them if they weren’t already yours. But watch yourself, that you don’t value these things to the point of being troubled if you should lose them.

 

In consideration of Aurelius’s perspective, another idiomatic expression comes to mind. The phrase “the grass is always greener on the other side [of the fence]” is used to say that the things a person does not have always seem more appealing than the things he or she does have.

 

Given this view, Ludaversal (2015), the ninth studio album by rapper Ludacris comes to mind. Specifically, the track “Grass is Always Greener”, produced by Da Internz, is relevant. For context, Ludacris states on the song:

 

[Verse 1]

Yeah

Did some movies and started missing this rap shit

Back to rap and starting missing them movies

Left these hoes to settle down with just one chick

Get with one chick, started missing them groupies

Stop drinking for a year, and I was all sober

Next year I got drunk and did it all over

Yesterday, I quit smoking and swore I had enough

Till I smelt it in the club and had to take a puff

I got rich and learned life was a bitch

Now everybody’s after all of my ends

(Get yo hand out my pocket!)

When I was broke, all love from my folks

But nowadays, I’m losing all of my friends, let the story begin

 

[Hook]

The grass is always greener on the other side

Always searching for another high

The grass is always greener on the other side

Caterpillar to a butterfly

The grass is always greener on the other side

Always searching for another high

The grass is always greener on the other side

Caterpillar to a butterfly

 

Bye, bye, butterfly

Fly away

Bye, bye, butterfly

Fly away

 

Apparently, Ludacris kept up with the Joneses while being able to traverse the proverbial fence that separated his yard from theirs. All the while, the rapper ostensibly learned that the grass may be greener on the other side, though it still has to be maintained (i.e., watered, mowed, etc.).

 

In essence, possessions, lived experiences, and other elements that an individual covets are the product of maintenance activities of which one may be unaware. Ergo, there is no utopic outcome. Regarding this worldview, authors of The Daily Stoic state (page 155):

 

We regularly covet what other people have. We desperately try to keep up with the Joneses, all the while the Joneses are miserable trying to keep up with us. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.

 

So today, stop trying to get what other people have. Fight your urge to gather and hoard. That’s not the right way to live and act. Appreciate and take advantage of what you already do have, and let that attitude guide your actions.

 

Rather than keeping up with the Joneses while presuming that the grass is always greener on the other side, I invite you to practice a Stoic approach to rational living. After all, being a proverbial caterpillar isn’t awful. Besides, searching for another high inevitably has its dystopic downsides.

 

If you’re looking for a provider who tries to work to help understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life—helping you to sharpen your critical thinking skills, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.

 

As the world’s foremost hip hop-influenced REBT psychotherapist, I’m pleased to try to help people with an assortment of issues from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.

 

At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply trying to help you to feel better, I want to try to help you get better!

 

 

Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW


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References:

 

CommonLit. (2014). Keeping up with the Joneses. Retrieved from https://www.commonlit.org/texts/keeping-up-with-the-joneses#

Daily Stoic. (n.d.). Translating the Stoics: An interview with “The Daily Stoic” co-author Stephen Hanselman. Retrieved from https://dailystoic.com/stephen-hanselman-interview/

Holiday, R. and Hanselman, S. (2016). The daily stoic: 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living. Penguin Random House LLC. Retrieved from https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-daily-stoic-366-meditations-on-wisdom-perseverance-and-the-art-of-living-d61378067.html

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