Why is the grass always greener on the other side?

[Scepcop]

Some deep questions I have about life.

Why is the grass always greener on the other side? Why does every choice seem to lead to suffering? It's like when you make a choice, you find yourself wishing that you had made the other choice!

For example, if you are single, you will long for the love, companionship and stability of marriage and committed relationships. You will often feel lonely, like no one really cares about you or is there for you.

But if you are married, then you long for the freedom of being single and feel like a caged bird with obligations and responsibilities, unfree to meet other exciting women and develop new connections, or pursue your passions.

If you are a perpetual traveler wandering around the world, after a while you may long for the stability of a home, family, routine, stable friends, etc. But if you have a normal stable routine life, then you may long for adventure, new experiences, freedom, seeing new lands, etc.

Or, take these simpler examples:

If you stay home too long, you will feel bored, like you need to get out and have some fresh air and move around. But if you are out for a while (esp if you are an introvert), you will feel tired and miss the comfort of a cozy home. Isn't that weird?

If you stop eating junk food, you will crave it after a while and miss the flavor. But if you stuff yourself with junk food, then you will feel guilty and wish you hadn't. At that point, you will realize that staying healthy and not eating it would have been better. But if you hadn't eaten it, then you would have felt the craving for it! So either way, you lose and suffer!

It seems that whatever choice you make leads to suffering. Why is that? Is the universe playing some cruel trick on us? Are we meant to suffer and crave and feel dissatisfied?

Why is the grass always greener on the other side? Why does the grass on the other side always appear to be more desirable? Why do we always regret the choice we didn't make?

Is this what Buddha meant when he said that "the nature of life is suffering?"

[Twain Shakespeare]

[Scepcop]

[Arouet]

Really the point here is about balance.

[NinjaPuppy]

[Twain Shakespeare]

Then SCECOP, try to have another. Live with the discipline (any of them) that help one achieve "Detachment, balance, harmony" rather it is Yoga, Zen, or Miester Eckhardt, etc.

SCECOP, I don't know if you are still such a psychological infant as to suffer yourself from those probs, but I doubt it. I think you understand the simplest insight of Siddharta well enough that such distresses with you are temporary and dealt with naturally, but there is a state or more of growth beyond that maturity.

Ninja, from what I have read of you, you have already achieved normal maturity, and are not still caught up in infantile destractions. In my own experience, that puts you in the wrong place to understand the statement with the force it comes with when ffelt by one in the dark night of the soul. Buddhism is a twelve step program for recovering children, first and foremost. Now Zen, that's for grown ups. I suggest you comtemplate not the statement "All is sorrow" but rather the question "Who is the Great Lord Who makes the grass green?"

[NinjaPuppy]

[critusodem]

[Twain Shakespeare]

[Twain Shakespeare]

[NinjaPuppy]

[Twain Shakespeare]

I love you Ninja. I almost ready, after that, to go public with my "paranormal experience" that occured between 9:58 and midnight of the 26th of July 2012

[NinjaPuppy]

[Twain Shakespeare]

New thread "a god from the machine" in Share your paranormal exp. Forum

[Scepcop]

Also, why does Murphy's Law seem to control the universe? It seems like the universe is always against you, giving you the opposite of what you want.

For example:

- What you want the most is always the hardest to get, and what you want the least is the easiest to get.

- By the time someone becomes financially independent, they will have lost their youth, be over the hill and less attractive, so that they can't enjoy their freedom as much as if they were young.

- By the time you finally get what you want, it's already too late. Or you don't get what you want until it's too late.

- Great jobs that involve travel usually go to people with families, rather than to people who are free and single.

- Women don't want you unless you are already taken or attached. You are probably more likely to meet your soulmate when you are already married than when you are single.

- You always find something the last place you look. If you look for something and it can be in five possible places, you always find it in the 5th place rather than the first through fourth.

- When I am at an intersection and don't know which way to turn, and take a random guess, 90 percent of the time I make the wrong turn. How can a 50/50 chance go wrong 90 percent of the time?!

- Why do interruptions come at the worst times?

- Why do important calls come when you are not available to answer the phone or when you step out for a minute?

- Why does traffic increase when you are late? Why do other cars in front of you move slower when you are late?

Have any of you noticed this? Why is the universe always against us? Why does Murphy's Law rule the universe rather than some fair and just God? Is the universe some kind of a trickster?