on jealousy and girls...

image here


first, let me say that to my knowledge I am not the subject of any ill will attributed to the aforementioned. I work alone and spend much of my time talking to myself so that allows for very little in the way of jealousy. I've just been coming across this topic quite a lot as of late and thought I'd do a little philosophic blog post on the subject.

I don't remember experiencing much jealousy growing up. I was the eldest which put me in a slightly superior position in my family and I was a child whose esteem was diligently worked on by a devoted grandfather. Plus, I was neither very beautiful nor very smart so I wasn't exactly inspiring envy in anybody. Now, was I ever jealous? Well, yes, of course...but I would describe my feelings as envy. There was a true absence of malice in what I felt rather it sprung from a genuine desire to possess a certain quality I found extraordinary.

I added the "girls" portion to my post title because I think ladies feel and express jealousy in a different way than men making it particularly poisonous. I am not exempt from that description. I have allowed my own youthful jealousy to corrupt and bind me in a way that little else could. Thankfully, those days are long behind me, but I can still recall moments of exhausting, gut wrenching speculation and doubt that flourished as a result of my own petty insecurities.

I'm not entirely certain when I allowed that stuff to fall away. It doesn't mean I don't occasionally envy my lovely counterparts, because I do. But, instead of wallowing in a puddle of why can't I or why aren't I, I continue on...satisfied with the fact that for everything that I am not there is so much more that I am. Once I stopped indulging in such useless emotions, I was free to just be completely authentic. I didn't have to reveal all the big words I knew and every obscure reference that made me appear clever and witty. I could just be what I was. The good and the bad. So if I could just impart one tiny bit of knowledge...one kernel of truth it would be:

become your own very best friend.