JEALOUSY

By Johanne James

Hello there!

Jealousy is something that we can all identify with, is it not?

That torrid emotion that takes us to the darkest regions of the heart. The hijacking of all thought and reason, it may leave you demoralised. It sets you on a path that defies logic and has you committed to a pattern behaviour that will leave you, when you return to your senses of course, asking what on earth was I thinking and doing? Under any other circumstances it would not enter into your realm of thought, would it? I have been envious, but envy to which I had aspired to become or achieve what my peers had. That always had a positive outcome. To be jilted by a lover who preferred the attentions of another left one thinking, what does he or she have that I don’t? What does he or she see in him or her? Or craving some possession that you don’t have that someone else does? Good golly miss Molly, what was I thinking? What use is this destructive entity that will drive us to distraction and consume our being? Can’t eat, can’t sleep, can’t work and can’t communicate, that is of course the extreme account of events. It doesn’t have to be that way if one can recognise but not identify with it. Finding other ways of coping, maybe plunging oneself into an indulgence of substances that can cost one dearly is not the answer, for there are no answers, only choices! How many times have we seen, read or heard that some poor soul has reacted out of character and that microsecond of insanity has been rendered to a lifetime of regret. If we could go back and change that moment, perhaps respond differently, another path would have been followed. Some of us can control or let it pass through us as no state is permanent, not even a bad one, and realise that there is nothing one can do other than let time take this demon away from us or at least let the emotion subside, but many of us still succumb!
In closing let me say that envy leads to jealousy, jealousy leads to frustration, frustration leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to pain and pain leads to suffering. Wars commence, nations fall and many are consumed by the fire that will rage! Do not succumb to that green-eyed monster that dwells within us all! Let me tell you my friends, that suffering is pointless!

Thanks for listening.

Johanne James