A friend said, “We always thought that the grass is always greener on the other side until we get there.” My friend who migrated to another country is always missing home. She despises the weather, food and the unfriendly people who constantly look down on people of different skin colour.
She has been called names and it’s difficult for her to explain that she’s from Malaysia since narrow-minded people always assume that Chinese are from China and if you’re from Malaysia, you should be a Malay.
She’s still lucky as she can still fly home a few times a year especially during winter. Then we would go out for a local food crusade that I always take for granted because for me, they’re like an abundant supply which will never run out.
I learned a lot about the different culture that she lives in. My friend is very outspoken and she loves to share her side of the story and I love listening as I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge of the human behaviour. Sometimes I can get emotional when I hear how mean some people can be to others.
Like I’ve written before, many cannot embrace the concept of distinctness of each individual and that everyone must be in uniformity. Or that people must have the same skin colour to be respected yet to mention Nazis, I would probably offend many people.
That’s why I love being a Malaysian. Despite our different ethnicity and cultural backgrounds, we still have respect towards each other thus we acknowledge differences and value uniqueness. I mentioned how Malaysians were so divided before I knew the truth and my friend told me that it was worse on the other side. People who think that the grass is always greener on the other side often use extensive praises to an extent that is annoying to some.
It’s fine to admire and look up to others but to believe that we are less superior is wrong. We should learn from the achievements and successes of others so we can improve ourselves, not to enslave ourselves and worship others because they are more successful or have a better tone. Sometimes people believe every piece of information fed to them just because the one feeding the information is believed to be more superior.
The grass is definitely not greener as we all thought. Instead of leaving our country, why don’t we better it so we can call it a home? I also know a few well-off people who migrated to other countries but ended up being jobless and living off allowances or becoming the working-class citizens. Of course, there are also others who are successful as well but problems are still there when they are around people who are narrow-minded and cannot tolerate differences.
I always hear people who have been overseas for a short while, speaking about other godly cultures. They kept comparing what we have here with what they experienced outside. To compare in order to better ourselves is better than to compare to degrade ourselves. This makes me wonder if they love it so much there, why return?
Don’t look down on what we have here or the people we have around us. We seldom appreciate people and things around us until they are gone or out of sight and whatever it is, we must appreciate this country we call home and give something in return. Instead of being busy spying on the grass on the other side of the fence, why not water and fertilize what we have here? Maybe we are too busy admiring until we forget to tend to what we have here.
The grass is the same on both sides. Don’t be overcomed by the greed of wanting what others have by believing what we have is less. We might not appreciate a tiny safety pin until we lose a button. Instead of chasing the other end of the rainbow and get frustrated, why not admire it from afar and beautify what we have around us?
