Are you a glass half full kind of person or a half glass empty?  Are you a person who can easily see the flaws in something?  Well, chances are you may also suffer from the Grass is Always Greener Attitude.

We’ve all suffered from it from time to time.  Things aren’t going well or the way you think they should and you imagine anything is better than this.  Maybe you think you need that new job, or need to move to another city or divorce that spouse for someone else, but many times you find out that you’ve just taken the same issues you had to another location or another person.  Change is a good thing IF it’s coming from the right place and not just from bad attitude or coveting something that you can’t have.

The Grass is Always Greener Attitude is often based on imagination or speculation, but not necessarily on facts.  Because sometimes to have ALL the facts, you need to be in the middle of it.  For instance, you might think you’re being logical about why you should leave your spouse for someone else, but you’ve not actually lived with that other person on a daily basis.  You would be giving up something you know for something you THINK you know and you would be taking a chance for sure, when just working hard on what you already have to make it better might be the best option, unless it’s an abusive situation, of course.

On this 4th of July, we live in a country where anywhere but here looks greener to some people.  They have given up on the country they love and spend their time comparing it to the way things used to be or to other countries they’ve read about that seem so much more together than we do.  Some people who want change, with the best of intentions, do it with such a negative attitude that they push others away rather than bring people together.  We read about dishonesty, incivility, and cruelty on a daily basis and we’re inundated with it on a variety of screens, making us believe that anything has to be better than where we are right now.  We’re afraid to say what we we think for fear of judgement, retaliation or worse and nobody seems to want to have honest, civil, informed discourse, instead allowing our emotions, especially what we think of as “righteous” anger to take over.

When our country was founded, the men who came together did not always agree on everything, in fact sometimes they vehemently disagreed.  They argued about everything from the division of power between states and nation to slavery.  The Bill of Rights was written as a way to appease Federalists and get them on board.  These were educated men from different points of view who were able to participate in honest, open discussion and then come to a consensus.  Somewhere we’ve lost that ability to come to consensus based on a shared vision.  Our country is sorely lacking in that shared vision today.

Just from my little point of view, I would suggest that our shared vision might be love of country.  Perhaps the preamble of the constitution would be a place to start:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It’s really important for us to look at this carefully as I believe it gives us direction as to what we should be doing as a country.   The question then is, HOW do we do this?  By angrily yelling and demanding or through artful persuasion?  By way of drawing a line in the sand or by compromising?  By thinking of the golden rule – treating others the way we would like to be treated?  By electing those whose purpose is to serve others and not serve themselves?

And by the way, it says WE THE PEOPLE, not we the politicians or we the government.  Despite how bad we think things are, it is still up to “we the people” to either make change or complain and look to greener pastures.  After 242 years of existence, we’re in a bit of a rut, just like the marriage I spoke of earlier.  Are we willing, as a people to stop complaining, roll up our sleeves and do what we need to do to make this country more than a slogan?  Calling America Great Again and Making America Great Again are two completely different things.  There’s nothing wrong with striving towards greatness as long as we’re working together and not assuming someone else will do all the work for us.

I will admit that I am a patriotic American, I love my country, my flag and its people.  I don’t like how we’re behaving, but like a wayward child, I don’t hate the child, I’m not embarrassed by the child, I dislike the behavior.   And the behavior needs to and CAN change. Each of us is a leader in our own way, in our own location and can make a real difference as long as we’re willing to work and get rid of our Grass is Always Greener Attitude.