Selfish Ramblings No. 2: Jealousy, Dormancy, and Regret
Something about a phrase being observably and self-applicably correct makes me uncomfortable. I know I think far too highly of myself for someone whose self-loathing runs about as deep as the challenger, but I have always thought myself to be above or excluded from the societal rhetorics that apply to the vast majority.
Comparison is the theif of all joy.
I often refuse to seriously consider widely known sayings and their meanings, and I usually do so unconciously. Then, one day, I'll be thinking myself in circles and land at the exact same conclusion someone already has and has already condensed into something concise and understandable.
I am a horrifically jealous person, and I hate myself for it.
Realistically, I know my own journey is worth something. It has to be; there is no greater mystery nor glory than the combined effort of living singular lives. I know what I have done and what I do will likely never be original, yet it still stings when I am proven correct. The jealousy I store for things that were never even an opportunity for me, that I never set out to attempt to get, is somehow worse than the jealousy gathered from things I did try for and did not get.
Whenever I enter a period of seeping jealousy, after lies a period of dormancy. The E in envy stands for fucking exhausting. Post drowning in that sea of green (envy), my body lies stuck at the bottom, gasping at any small bubbles I can to fill my lungs and try to float back to the surface. In the time I spend down there I do nothing but attempt to gather the courage to start again. If nothing I do is ever worth anything and will pale in comparison to everyone else's acheivements, what's the point of doing anything? (Again, interplay of my knowing that that does not matter and effort is truly the only thing one can be jealous of, but I circle back to my previous point in that case).
Post dormancy, once I've filled my lungs of enough air and limbs with enough fight to meagerly kick my head back above the waves, comes regret. Regret of how long I spent drowning myself further, not getting back above the waves sooner, all the time I lost being envious of things that do not matter. An attempt can be made to brush it all off with a "whatever, my life is my own journey and it doesn't need to be influenced by anyone else's in any self-inflicted way that will affect me negatively," but it lingers. Then, slowly but surely, I grow jealous of everyone who has kept their head above the water this whole time (regardless of whether or not I saw them sink too), and the cycle starts again.
In short, Limp Bizkit had it down, "jealousy filling up my fucked up mind" (Durst, 2000).













