Green-Eyed Monster

Feeling envious really sucks. Take my word for it, because it's an emotion with which I'm quite familiar, at least until recently in my life. I've had wonderful, enviable experiences of late, so my acquaintance with that dreadful feeling has lessened considerably. In fact, when I tell people of my upcoming dream-come-true adventure, I hear "I'm so jealous," or "I envy you," a lot. As soon as someone says that, especially if they're a good friend, I feel bad for having shared my good news, because I really don't want someone I care for to feel that way.
I've been consumed with longing and yearning for much of my adult life. Constant, long-time yearning can turn into envy and bitterness, which are poison to the soul. I'm sure I've said "I envy you" before, but I can't recall when. I've felt envy so often and so deeply that I just won't say so aloud to the recipient of those feelings. I keep such dark, bitter thoughts to myself. I know that when my friends say those things to me, they don't taste the bitter bile of jealousy as I do, and that it's just their way of saying how lucky I am. I also know that they are genuinely happy for me. Still, due to my experience with that unhealthy emotion, I don't want them to feel that way on my account.
I confess, however, that on one occasion when I told a certain someone my good news, I was secretly hoping to illicit some jealousy on their part. Needless to say, this person isn't really a friend, just someone I'm forced to see more often than I'd like. On another occasion I relayed the news more as if I were boasting, rather than bursting, with happy news. I immediately felt remorse, because I know what's it's like to be on the receiving end of news delivered in an insensitive, oh-so-full-of-yourself manner.
I hope my forthcoming adventure heals some of these issues for me, and makes me a better person. Isn't that why we like to go to different places and experience different things? I'm sure for many people it is.
But what if circumstances prevent you from spreading your wings? I've written many blurbs about how a truly good and interesting person doesn't need to explore the world to broaden their mind. We were given minds so that we can expand them just sitting quietly by ourselves, or walking mindfully in a crowd. I keep forgetting that a lot of the people I've envied for where they've been or what they've done aren't particularly interesting or enlightened, just full of themselves. Indeed, people I truly respect and admire seldom make me envious. They inspire me instead, or even fill me with awe. These far preferable reactions uplift and motivate me; they don't bring me down.
Envy comes out of feeling a lack of something. That lack or need is nobody's fault but by own. I shouldn't have to fill that need by going somewhere outside of myself, especially if I'm unable to do so. All I need to improve myself is myself. If I'm healthy and my mind is in tact I've got all I need to make myself a better person. But now I have the opportunity for self-improvement by experiencing something grand. Lucky me. I realize that's a fortunate shortcut to self-fulfillment, and for that I'm truly grateful. It's a lot harder to be the envy-free person I want to be without all the things that make me envious. But for now, my cup is more than half-full, and I appreciate that. But even when I see my cup as half-empty, I've found that genuine gratitude takes some of the sting out of being bitter.
I'm only envious when I compare myself to others. So maybe I should stop doing that. After all, everyone's going to die one day, right? I find that rather comforting. And even if I found out there was some super-human out there who will never die, I wouldn't be envious in the least. I like that we're all a part of the cycle of birth and death on this fabulous, cyclical planet of ours. So next time time I'm feeling envious, I'll just remind myself that one day I'm going to die, just like the person I envy.
Death is the great leveller. It's something we all share, sooner or later. Knowledge of our inevitable death puts things into perspective, and that curtails odious, self-destructive comparison to others. It's strange how my current obsession with death, which I've alluded to in recent blurbs, has supplanted the feelings of envy I've harboured for many years. It's also strange that I feel much more stable preoccupied with death than when I was living with the wobblies and making myself sick with envy.
No doubt it's my age, the time of year, and recent turn of fortune that has killed envy and turned my thoughts to a seemingly darker mode. It's like the Death card in the tarot. When it turns up in a reading, it rarely signifies physical death. Death XIII in the tarot tells of the passing of an old way of life, a clearing out of the past, and the birth, albeit sometimes painful, of the fresh and new. The tarot Death card is about rebirth, and purging the unwanted and unnecessary.
Well, I've no need or desire for envy. So for now, at least, good riddance to bad rubbish.
So mote it be.
- G. P.