“The grass is always greener on the other side.
The green-eyed monster.
Green with envy.
It’s not easy being green.
The last one might have been Kermit… but he’s right. It’s not easy being green with jealousy.
I know my kids can speak to this, and they have spoken to me about this, at length, when one of them is getting more attention or gets the better milk cup.
Don’t even get me started about the time the dog wanted to sit with Norah instead of Jack. We’re still dealing with that one.
We outgrow a lot of things as we age, like pacifiers, shoes, and the need for the Mickey Mouse water bottle, but do we ever really outgrow jealousy?
From my experience as an adult, I’m fairly certain we don’t.
Keeping up with the Joneses, making our lives Pinterest perfect, and oh boy… Instagram filters! There are constantly opportunities to compare, measure, and wonder why your life doesn’t look like her life.
In ‘mom culture’ we have started to talk about this kind of jealousy a lot. There is a good counterbalance of hot mess express social media, that helps us feel a little less alone with our Cookie Monster cupcakes that look like melted blue demons. I’m glad documenting our epic failures is a thing in the mom world.
Perfection is boring and unrealistic.
We don’t often share our failures when it comes to career stuff though.
No one is posting on LinkedIn about the promotion they didn’t get or sharing their quarterly losses.
Instead, rejection emails get quickly filed away and we put on a brave face for our friends and coworkers. Or we simply don’t talk about it at all.
Yet, the jealousy that comes with seeing others get where we want to be is still there, and it’s a natural feeling.
So here’s my challenge to you. Own it. Name it. Admit it.
There’s a certain freedom in putting our jealously out there and talking it out. Then with that freedom, we can grab the reins of what we can control, accept what we can’t, and move along to water our own grass and watch it grow.
But the sibling jealousy thing? I’ve got nothing. Maybe get two dogs?
(No, no, no, fleeting thought. Back into the brain you go.)”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Becca Carnahan. You can follow her journey on Instagram and her website. You can purchase her book here. Submit your own story here, and be sure to subscribe to our free email newsletter for our best stories, and YouTube for our best videos.
Read more from Becca here:
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