"The grass is always greener on the other side" my mother said. I was nine years old and begging her to let me have the new Nintendo DS which all my friends had, or so I told her. I sighed, huffed, puffed and eventually got over it, still not understanding what she meant.

In life, we want a lot of things, whether it's a new gadget, talent, a boyfriend/girlfriend or to go somewhere, we want it and we aren't satisfied with what we already have. I, like many others, envy and look upon those who have what it is that I want, whatever it is, for me it can seem like the be all and end all of life, almost as if I cannot live without it, not realizing I can, perfectly fine in fact. The list of examples could go on, ranging from when I was six and wanted a pony, to when I was fourteen and wanted concert tickets to my favourite band. Although many times I can get what I want, or not, I never learned anything, until not long ago, I learned just how unappreciative I had been.

Sitting in my English class, listening to my teacher give us our weekend homework, a personal writing piece. I enjoyed writing about my own personal feelings and thoughts, it beats studying and writing fragments of information you can vaguely remember. There were some various options for this piece, fiction, an argumentative piece or a discursive piece. I had always faired rather well in English, how well I never quite understood but I decided to challenge myself a bit, I went for the discursive piece, "a talent I would like to have" was the topic, again, something I wanted. I spent that entire weekend planning, writing and editing this essay. I knew what I wanted to discuss, my desire to be artistic. I discussed how I felt this talent would be beneficial in my life, why I longed to be blessed with this gift and elaborated on why I considered it to be a talent.It took me one night to write it, after one night of planning and following one night of editing. Not realizing I was inches away from making a valuable life discovery.

My friends all applauded as I sat in my corner of the room looking rather embarrassed but a wave of pride upon me as my English teacher finished reading my essay to the class. I felt a great sense of achievement and accomplishment, which I must admit I was used to feeling in English class. My teacher told me why he loved it so much, how he found my insights intriguing and he felt my passion as he read it. Regardless, that artistic talent I longed for wasn't on my shoulder, I was watching attentively as a girl from my class carried her outstanding painting to the art room. I gazed in awe at her creation, wishing I could do something as good as that, until she approached me.
"Wow your essay was amazing! You're really good" she kindly said to me. I thanked her for her compliment and in return complimented her on her painting. I don't think either of us could see what was going on here.

Student Awards Day, her name was called up to collect the award highest exam result for Art. It wasn't surprising, she was great! I was happy for her win, she had such a credible gift, one I wrote about. I could see how gifted she was, but didn't expect to be standing next to her , but yes, I was. I had just been given the award for highest exam result in English, I was thrilled! As I walked outside to get a photo taken with all the other winners I stood next to the artistic girl in my class.
"You're so lucky, I'd love to be good at English!" she told me with a tone of disappointment that she wasn't. At that very moment, I realized.

As we both stood beside each other, holding up our certificates for our achievements we had, getting our photo taken, we failed to understand that we both had something the other wanted. We were so submerged in looking upon one another's success for our talents that we lost sight of the fact that we each had our own special talent. I had something she, and possibly many others, wish they had. Maybe I couldn't draw it, paint it, or recreate it on canvas, but I could write it, which, to some people, is considered a gift. That day I understood exactly what my mother tried to tell me six years ago. The grass is in fact, always greener on the other side.