Your side of the fence

The other day I saw a headline promising an in-depth article about why winning lots of money isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I laughed, of course. Stared into the middle distance for a bit thinking of all the terrible times I’d have if I won lots of money. I imagine you too cannot think of a single thing about suddenly owning millions of extra dollars that would make you happy. 

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realised the article was designed to appeal to exactly this instinct in us. It was designed to meet us on the side of fence where we, the people, stand, arms folded, understanding one important thing: we would do better. We wouldn’t be miserable. We would know paradise when we saw it. We wouldn’t make mistakes or trust the wrong people or feel our friends behaving differently or be discombobulated by the quiet shifting of the universe that no doubt occurs when you zoom up the tax brackets. We would keep it quiet, have better friends, give to those less fortunate than we are, and treasure the privilege of never having to have a single other problem so long as we live. 

Money, as we all know, doesn’t buy happiness. Or sense! That’s why, as we all know, rich people are sad idiots. 

But here’s the thing: there’s probably not a scientifically accurate means of comparison here, is there? We’re probably never going to find out who wins. Looking over your fence at the green grass on the other side can be diverting, it’s true, but who wants to be looking over a fence when there’s backyard cricket and a drink with your name on it and your mate just brought over a pav? 

Public Service Announcement: other people’s lives aren’t the point. Focus on the pav.

Focus on the cup of tea you have with the pav. The chair you sit in.

Focus on reading. The way words you’ve never seen in that order can completely change your mind.

Focus on the greatest story you’ve ever heard someone tell.

Focus on the song you can’t not sing to.

 Focus on the sounds that happen only in the evening. The dinners enjoyed on surrounding verandas. The insects. The sound of kids in the street. The evening news theme. The night time kettle. The dog snoring.

 Focus on clear desks and green hills and flossed teeth and butterflies and crumpets.

Focus on gradual change. How some things are different now. Like the way men these days hug each other. The generation currently in their teens and their twenties. I saw two men approach each other with such huge grins the other day that I thought “this will be some handshake” but as they got closer I revised my prediction to the form of intimacy known in generations past as “a back-slapping man-hug”. But no. These two, heading towards each other, embraced front on and kissed on the lips, happy to be reunited. One of them, rather than let go of the hug, picked his mate up, swirled him, and put him back down again. “How are you?” he said. “How’s Katie? Finally getting hitched eh?” and there they were, unabashedly expressing affection for each other in the street with the same silly, daggy affection women have been allowed to express for generations. We’ve come a long way, baby.

Focus on spiderwebs. The design. The function. That amazing thing that happens when the light is right and the morning dew glistens and humans think, huh, spiders are pretty amazing, before heading inside where it’s less dewy.

Focus on the person who was kind to you at the start.

Focus on those little moments that are just yours, like when you’re knee-deep in the sea and the people you’re there with are just out of earshot and then you see fish darting about. Quick and silver and sharp and glittery and silent, and you go to shout out but the fish are gone and anyway nobody else will get your fish like you do.

Focus on friends who make you laugh and friends who make you proud and friends who you realise later you didn’t even ask a single question of the whole time but you feel somehow lighter and smarter and funnier and like maybe everything is going to be just great. 

So long as you don’t win any money. That would be a disaster.

Public Service Announcement: your life is on the side of the fence that you’re on.

This was first printed in the 600th edition of The Big Issue. Well done to them.