My brother is tall, I'm short. My brother has blond hair, mine is dark brown. My brother wears Express, I wear Diesel. My brother adores math, I'd rather stab my eyes with rusty nails that have bits of glass at the tip than solve a trig problem.

With all the differences, my brother and I are the closest that any two brothers can be. We call each other a couple times a week. We've been told that we even have our own language that involves faces and noises that mean something to just the two of us.

I adore him.

He just graduated college a few weeks ago. He's now living in a house with one of those nine to five jobs that parents beg their kids to get when they graduate. You know, the ones that have salaries and retirement benefits and even medical coverage.

Everything I don't have. He's everything I am not.

While having a quick visit in Wisconsin this past weekend, the four of us sat at the table reading the Sunday paper. My dad started to ask my brother questions about dividends and benefits that his new job is giving him. My brother, the smart guy that he is, gave all the right answers(apparently) because the ending of the conversation left my dad smiling and nodding his head in approval. The same conversation left my stomach in knots.

It felt like the time I was locked in the elevator, at the first college I attended in Wisconsin, with a bunch of French foreign exchange students. While they panicked in French, I was more upset that I couldn't figure out their game plan because they were speaking something I had no knowledge in more than the fact that I was in a tiny space that I had no clue how long I was going to be trapped in. It was a moment where I felt so out of loop.

It's always been this way, really. My parents often joke that I'm probably the son of the milkman which my mom doesn't think is funny because she always insists there was never a milkman and I don't think it's funny because I don't like milk.

On my train ride back to Chicago, I started to ask myself what I was wrong with me. Why couldn't I be like my brother? Why couldn't I have all those sharp answers? A perfect dog? A cute house to live in? A nice car? A solid savings account? What was I doing wrong? Where did I go wrong?

It's something a lot of us do. We tend to look for the grass on the other side. Often it is greener. Often it's mowed really nicely while yours may seem a little out of hand. Often there seems to be no bare spots and no weeds. It's totally human nature to judge only what you know about other people's lives and then compare to what you don't have. But what happens when it seems like the other person's grass actually seems to be growing faster than yours?

As I dragged my suitcase down State Street to catch the 146 bus, a guy was playing the drums outside of a drugstore. His eyes were closed. He was bobbing his head up and down to his own beat. It was a solid "Boom TISK boom boom Tisk. Boom Tisk boom boom Tisk." Every head bob and every slam of the stick to the drum had the man smiling. Occasionally he'd yell out a "WOOOOOW!" and sang a few lines of a song he probably made up. Most importantly, though, he. was. happy.

Then there are times where you forget that not everyone needs grass. Some people are born to not take a path made of green pastures, but of cement sidewalks. Sure, the path can be tougher and harder than the softness of plush grass, but when you're born to move to your own beat, well, grass tends dull the beautiful noise you're making and will make for the rest of your life.