I’ve started to become more aware of my own jealousy and its triggers.

It’s part of an overall self-improvement project to just be more mindful of the things that make me less than stellar.  Getting the pet name “The Grumple” has made me face the fact that I’m not as much fun to be around lately.  I’ve never been Miss Mary Sunshine, but spending whole days in a visible funk isn’t good use of my life.  Anyway, I’ve never been great at wrangling my emotions, so let’s just get it together for a change, shall we?

I get jealous a lot.

I’m not consumed by my jealousy.  At least not in an angry, bitter way.  When I’m jealous of something, I mentally turn it around into a “good for them!” pretty quickly, but it sews the seeds for a bout of ennui.  I’m not really depressed or sad, I just feel a sigh of the soul.  And that lingers.  It pours over into parts of my day that shouldn’t even be bothered by something so small.

I know that my life isn’t necessarily where I’d like it to be.  That will change, and I’m trying my best to be patient.  But my life isn’t all it could be.  And I suffer from not knowing the line between what could be and what is possible for me.

I think a lot in terms of the snowdrop, “I could x, if only I were y.”  I could do that if only I were prettier.  I could go there, if only I were thinner.  I could be friends with them, if only I were less awkward.  I could have that house, if only I were more motivated.  I could be perfect, if only I were perfect.

It slows me down.  It leaves me feeling raw, lonely, confused, unsure and awkward.  But in a soft, vague, fuzzy way.  In a way that only slightly colours me at the edges, in a way that doesn’t feel like something I can point to or name.  I’ve probably forgotten all about the thing that made me feel a little twinge of jealousy in the first place.  I’m just left with a nebulous feeling that barely even registers to me, but it’s something other people can see and sense.

The question I’m left with, after all this self-discovery, is what I should do about it.  Do I reframe how I think about the things I see and want, or do I change my life to fit those whims?  I feel like going definitively with either solution won’t solve the problem entirely.  I feel like I need to start accepting that what I want isn’t always realistic, but at the same time, I know I need to make a move on making my life more wonderful.

But where do I start?