The green-eyed monster

I'm suffering from a bout of jealousy, and I'm not happy about it. Normally, I'm not a jealous person. I'm usually happy for another's good fortune. But lately, I've been harassed by the green-eyed monster. I think it has something to do with the blue funk I descend into during the weeks leading up to my birthday. I see that I haven't lived up to my potential or I'm not happy with my level of success or accomplishment, and I find myself jealous of those people who seem able to do the things I've been unable to do.

I have a friend, trained as an attorney, married to a doctor, who's a stay-at-home mom and working on writing a novel. That's cool. I'm not jealous of any of that. I think I might be jealous of the blog she writes and all the glowing comments she gets on every single post. I seem to struggle even writing on a regular basis (we don't even need to address the lack of readers). I've been critical of her writing (not to her, only in my head - I'm not a mean person) and the thesaurus words she uses (she's smart, so maybe she does use those words in everyday conversation), because I'm jealous that she writes regularly and has people that love her writing. I'm really jealous that she's got the discipline to write daily.

But jealousy, is not improving my writing, or making it easier. so I need to just get over it. And write a little more often. Perhaps feelings of jealousy are signals to help us figure out what we should be working on in our own lives.