Jealousy is one of my many flaws. It seems to appear out of nowhere. I will freely admit that from time to time I am jealous of folks. Quite often its for something pathetic like wishing I could give my kids more toys (they don’t need more!), or something more valuable to me, like a desire to live closer to family. This one has many benefits, there is the moral support and of course having an extra pair of hands around.
My jealousy usually appears as anger or frustration. Of course, I am never the problem or creator of these feelings, its always someone else fault. Like, for example once I was need some support at home (the kids were being a handful), Joel gets an urgent message and needs to pop out (to help someone). I’m left feeling grumpy and angry that the emergency could not have waited! Of course, this is stupid because an emergency is just that! You can’t plan for them but I’m still there bubbling in my own mood (still not my fault!). Please don’t misunderstand me, I can be mighty selfish but I would never stop him doing his job, this is just how I feel somedays.
Its all so easy to want something someone has; such a nice clothes, newest phone or whatever. You get what I’m saying, its easy to want something that someone else has. Its what we are, essentially conditioned too be like. The world places value in having stuff, especially stuff that can be measured, whether its money, Ofsted scores, or the number of followers on Twitter. I guess money is an easy one to measure. And so we place a lot of value in having money. Thinking about it society seems to teach us that we will be happier with more money. Therefore, the richest people in our world should be the happiest and the poorest people should be the saddest. Yes? Hum, I’m pretty sure this correlation is wrong! You just have to search gossip sites or listen to the news to hear about a celeb (I’m assuming they are wealthy) in the media struggling with life, family problems, addictions, gossip, etc. Some wealthy folks seem far from happy.
Its such a shame that we devalue the unmeasurable! We all have different things, gifts, talents that cannot be measured. The value of a conversation with a lonely person, the love that is shared between friends, or the importance to cuddle your child, these are all things that we should try to place more value in. And if we did place more value on the unmeasurable, maybe jealousy would be less of an issue.
Irreverent Rev's Wife 