The other side of the lake

"If I had known what it would be like to have it all - I might have been willing to settle for less."

Lily Tomlin

Life is funny. We spend our lives dreaming about what we would do if only we had... not realising that those who have, often look on our meagre existence and envy us for our passion, friendships and relationships and lives filled with love.

Money isn't everything- on either end of the spectrum. You need to eat, yes, but enough of it won't buy you love. So, the secret I guess to true happiness is to to tap into the scale of the continuum somewhere right in the middle.

Just enough money to do the necesseties, (and you decide what is absolutely necessary for you).

A big mansion may be beautiful to look at from the outside, but tremendously lonely to live in. People have so much space that they never see each other, and families live like tenants, rather than, well- families.

I guess that why the bible (my premier life manual) cautions us to "be content in whatever circumstances..."

Many people have picture perfect lives, but less than picture perfect relationships, but sometimes, some people do indeed have it all.

But having it all comes with its own complications.

Water bills are higher, and sometimes, when you move across the greener side of the lake, some of your best friends do not make the transition with you.

Imagine my surprise when one of my friends, whose life we could easily envy, says to me, "I long for the days when we had no money." Apparently, when his family had less, somehow they had more- each other. Now that everything is money, everyone has his/her own house and there are attendant issues that come along- increased security costs and constant paranoia about safety due to a greater display of wealth in a society with the highest crime rate in the world..

Newton's Third Law of Motion is "To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." The truth is, there are always going to be consequences of every decision. And sometimes, the consequences are greater than the decision itself.

Truly, no matter how much better some people look like they have it all, the grass is not always greener on the other side of the lake.