Jealousy is yuck

As you may have noticed, I mostly just like writing little bits of nonsense, but a few nights ago I felt like writing about this instead, and since my sister said she can blog about whatever she wants, so can I!

What is the deal with jealousy? I really don’t think of myself as a jealous type of person. In fact, the very type of person it conjures up in my head makes me shudder. It makes me think, “yuck.” It’s just such an unappealing trait and makes the person who is carrying it seem like much less than they are – in their own eyes as well as the eyes of any who know of their jealous feelings. In fact, if I ever feel it, I would be utterly ashamed for anyone to know it. BUT, I occasionally do. Well, I don’t know if jealousy is the right word exactly. I think the word that describes how I occasionally feel is competitive. It is rare, really, and there seems to be no real rhyme or reason as to who is the cause of those feelings, though I’m sure there is generally some explanation somewhere I just can’t uncover. It is a competitive like I must appear to be better or have everything better than another individual. WHY?? I recognize it so clearly only because it really is rare and when those feelings pop up in me, I feel . . . like I said, like, “yuck, what is this!? This is not the cool person I want to be.” (I have to keep stressing how “rare” because the very fact I am writing about it makes me worry I will appear to be someone with major issues).

I think I generally am not prone to those feelings because I do realize, I think fairly well – though I’m sure never well enough – how hugely blessed my life is. I am pretty sure that gratitude is the antidote to jealousy, and here is the thing; I know the other feeling, the true charity good feeling, the feeling we are supposed to have about success and good things happening to our brothers and sisters. Take for example my friend Marzee (yes, that’s you Marzee). I am the Mia-Maid councilor and she is the advisor (basically the one who does all the teaching). Besides being naturally beautiful and as thin as you could ever wish, she has all of these amazing talents that I can not even begin to think of being good at. She is always the one asked to sing for anything, she can just get up and lead the girls all perfectly, she can dance and just come up with some whole routine for the girls to work on in a matter of minutes, she is also spiritual and very clever and funny (you’ll see that if you ever read her comments), but I don’t feel jealous of her. I feel amazed and just like, “how on earth can someone be soo so good at something I can barely pretend to do??” but it’s like I am able to just feel like I can see God’s hand in the gifts in someone else’s life and I can see how it enriches and beautifies other lives around it including my own. See, that feeling. That is how we are supposed to feel. It makes me happy when I feel that way, not like I am less because someone else is great. My sister and I were talking once about our children and how it would only bring us joy and happiness to see them smarter, kinder, more talented and more attractive than we’d ever dreamed of being. The thought of them being amazing makes me filled with happiness. That is such a good feeling. It’s how we should feel about everyone I guess. Feeling joy and happiness because of someone else’s talents, gifts, and blessings seriously is the best, happiest feeling. I can’t explain it, but knowing that feeling, it really has made me finally understand the scripture in Moroni where it tells us to, “. . . pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love . . .” I hate ever having the other feeling.

Sometimes I think of life like a mission (you know, the 2 year mission), some people go to poor countries and live in filth while others go to rich countries and drive cars and have nice apartments, but no one has ever seemed to care about that aspect of things. It influenced the type of experience they had, but they never seem to wish it was different, certainly never feel jealous. They all love their experience because they all know it was about something much more important than the superficial things. I’m sure that’s how we’ll see life down here once it’s through. I think it’s interesting, that my first “favorite” scripture was Moroni 7:45. I’ve since had many other favorites and while this is a great scripture, I haven’t considered it a favorite really for years, but when I first read the Book of Mormon, it was my first real “favorite” and I remembered that it had been just the other day. It is the one that describes all the traits of charity. I’m getting tired of typing now, but you know – envieth not, beareth all things, not puffed up, etc. Anyway I really know and believe that it is so important to be grateful for what we have, really grateful and not to slip into the trap of thinking that if someone else has something good or does something good, it diminishes what we have or do, and I’m glad I wrote this because I have such a hunger to feel that happiness for others joys now and such a desire to banish any of those competitive feelings (I will still allow myself to always have particular people I want to beat in races however.)