Hey guys,

This is my first post on a new platform, a new home. Beehiiv. Feels a bit weird to be writing one of these, but I’ve heard good reviews about it. Better than Substack, so I’ve made the switch. But I guess we’ll just treat this as an experiment.

I want to talk to you this week about When the Grass is greener on the other side - a book I read a few weeks ago by author Jackson Saya and I decided, why not share my notes on the book to some who are non-readers, or just in case you’ll never come across the book.

Jackson Saya is a staunch Adventist at Newlife SDA Church, Nairobi. In the book, he draws much of his examples from the Bible but leaves enough room for religion critics and non-believers. He therefore takes a standpoint of a neutral observer of life in general.

Everybody has ever felt like another person (or people) are having a better life, a better time, or partner, or anything than them. Be it in childhood, teen years, work place, marriage. Something or someone always seem to be better than you. Someone always has something better than yours. We can call it many names: peer pressure, or mid-life crisis for those in their thirties. But what we can all be in unison is that we have experienced it at one point in our lives. Jackson calls this a rather common term - the grass being greener on the other side.

Often it is said, ‘He left for greener pastures’, describing someone who left a supposedly ‘low’ situation to a ‘better’ one. But is the other situation greener as it is supposed, is what Saya asks.

He brings our minds to four questions whenever we feel another side is better than our side:

I’ll tackle these separately hoping to have given a good summary of the book :)

Saya remembers the 1998 bombing of the United States’ Embassy in Nairobi. The site of attack had three buildings. The building to a co-operative society, succumbed to the shake. The other, belonging to a bank, lost its glass front and back. The third, The US Embassy itself, stood largely undamaged. The difference? Foundation.

We can fool each other on the infrastructure level, but not on the foundation level, which needs to resist the storms of time. When grass seems greener on the other side, it is imperative that you inquire what the grass is growing on. Grass growing on waste water effluent all-year-round can be green in appearance, but toxic and unpleasant in constitution. Attractive as the grass may be, contact with such grass will not provide the relaxing, ennobling results anticipated, but will produce stench and an unstable ground.

The foundations upon which the other person’s success (that you admire) are based, are they true and strong, or based on corruption, lust and evil, which will leave the person either at the mercy of his life or worst case scenario, death! If they are true, the person and his green grass will forever stand erect. Based on false and lies, well, I’ll leave you to decide. Haven’t you seen buildings come crumbling down near your area due to shaky foundations?

Ever seen the cakes on display at a bakery? They look luscious and everything you could ever want on a cake. But many have fallen to this trap and their bubble has been broken when they found out that the ones on display are fake wooden models; the real cakes are nothing in appearance nor taste compared to the ones on display. Same to food commercials.

Some things might look so true and real yet they are fakes. We all grew up thinking the grass on football fields are real, and we were like, ‘Why doesn’t our grass at home grow this lush.’

We soon realized those are artificial ‘carpets’ used on soccer fields. They are grass yes, but not real that can grow upon tender care and watering, like the Lord’s wonderful nature.

Don’t even get me started on how many men have fallen to women’s trap of big behinds and faces, and caused them to divorce their spouses considering them now not ‘green’ enough.

Sure, some grass is green because it is worked on. Someone somewhere has put in effort to see to it that the grass is green. Saya advices: those struggling with envy of those who have green grass from effort, there is no need to move. Find your purpose, which is your atmosphere of productivity, apply effort therein and soon enough it will be green.

Another writer I greatly look up to, Sister Ellen G White, puts it best for me:

And on another she says:

I don’t wanna ask you coz I’m not your supervisor and people don’t like their supervisors breathing down their necks with questions. I’ll soliloquy: Have I done the best with my grass?

I did not highlight much on this chapter, mostly coz it didn’t resonate with me much. But I will leave you with a rather common quote from it:

I can say what I remember from it is how Wangari Maathai planted lots of trees to bear witness to her Nobel prize-winning work.

🤷🏽‍♂️

It probably hits all of us that the fact is, another grass can be and is greener than ours. It can be real or fake or just the person has put in the right amount of effort to make his grass greener. Admiring the grass is not wrong, only that taking too long admiring the other might be the problem. It might draw you away from your own reality and lead you to plant artificial grass on a shaky foundation, making you leave nothing behind to be remembered with. But maybe you don’t wanna be remembered at all, who knows.

My takeaway from this book, I can make my grass as green as I want to and be fully content with my growth as long as I put in my best effort and lay it on the right foundations.

Just before you dismiss me as a nerd for being a books’ fanatic, kindly <reply> to this issue and tell me what you thought of my review. Also any other book(s) you’d recommend? I’d be sure to look for them😉.

Cheers!

Reagan..✍🏽