Sweat, Blood, and Tears

I don't believe in the greener grass on the other side. I don't believe in worrying about what you are missing, instead of concentrating on what you have. I don't believe in sitting in your dorm room, looking up Wisconsin and UNC. Because the simple, sad truth is that we will never find a place made for us anywhere on earth. Places are not made to fit people - people have to make the places fit them. It takes work, and energy, and sometimes a little bit of grief to make your place fit you.

Grief because this may, at one point, have been the greener grass. This may have been the place that you worked so hard to get to, and had been planning for and dreaming about for a long, long time. When you sat with old friends and built castles in the sky, this may have been the place that you built your castle out of. And when you finally arrive, it's hard to realize that it's still just a building on the ground, the kind that you've lived in your entire life. And then the eternal question, "Now what?"

This is the secret, the magic word, the path to a good and worthy life. No one ever talks about it, because no one ever wants to hear it. The secret is work. Dirty, hard work. "Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life." It's a very hard fact to resign yourself to. There's no lottery, no short cut or back road. No magic password or hidden country that will get you from here to happily ever after. You will be working class all the days of your life.

But, here's another little-discussed secret. Once you resign yourself to the working life, you realize that you can still have your greener grass. It's there, it is attainable after all. And if you diligently work at nourishing the good, and weeding out the bad, your life will slowly start fitting into you. And at the end of the day, you have the immense satisfaction of looking out, over everything that you've touched, and saying to yourself, "I did that, I changed that. It is mine." You can make a beautiful life, one worth living. It just takes work.

So, stop waiting for life to be right. Stop waiting for the right place and the right time, stop living temporarily. You are here, now. Take what you can, and leave what you cannot. Then buckle down, get creative, and get to work. Give your sweat, blood and tears to a place, and it will start to look like you. The more you give, the more you will belong. And the passerby will envy your beautifully-kept lawn.