Jealousy

I am indeed a jealous person. I see someone get something, achieve something, be told something, and I all the sudden gotta either match or surpass that person. Or another instance is I hear how someone's life is going and I wish that that is how my life is going.

So today, we're going to touch on two instances of jealousy that I experienced in the past 24 hours, and how if I am not careful or wise about this, I will bring about ruin to myself.

First off, if you've been here before, I wrote a post a little while back talking about how characters in stories get it so easy when it comes to relationship struggles and trying to get the girl. If you haven't yet read it, see this.

Now I know it's not the most fair or most reasonable thing to compare real life to fictional stories, but those stories came from a real person; a real writer. They understand life struggles enough to create a story that gets you attached to characters and get you to want similar as the characters would want.

So last night, we watched the series finale to God Friended Me. In it, there was a point in which Miles (the main character) was still in love with Kara (I'm not sure if that is how they spell it, but you get the point). They had been together for a little bit, but then separated due to Miles wanting to pursue the "God account" (it's tough to explain so just go along with it or go watch the show, it's pretty good if you ask me), and he doesn't pursue enough of the relationship. Kara moves on, but Miles is stuck in love with her, yet he respects her decision and just keeps it to himself. At some point the beans get spilled and Kara finds out Miles still loves her, and then at the end they agree to just be friends. But as the finale is closing, Miles' voiceover as he explains what happens in between the last events we witnessed and the current place he's at for the final scene, he says that "a few months later, our love had blossomed stronger than ever before and we've been together ever since". Admittedly, maybe I didn't get the quote verbatim, but it is close enough.

So that makes me jealous. I fell so hard and was so deeply in love with Sophia. Circumstances made it practically impossible for us to date, and then we were supposed to just go about this as friends. If you've been around for a bit or even just read the last several posts, you'll know that didn't exactly pan out. Anyways, she's probably, even most likely moved on from her love for me, and I'm trying to move on, yet a part of me still loves her deeply. I know I just gotta move on, but man do I wish I could have a similar story to Miles.

This is why I need to be careful about my jealousy lest I bring ruin upon myself.

Second point is that my brother has been starting to get back into working out. We (as a family) have tried for a long while but eventually we stopped since he wasn't as interested. But now he is, so good for him.

Today he pushed himself on the treadmill and did 2 miles in an average pace of 8'59", which is a pretty solid pace, faster than 6 miles per hour average. As the one in the family who was on the semi-most recent fitness track, I typically do my runs at 6 miles per hour for half an hour.

So being stuck partially in this idea that I am probably the one in the best shape (although I have fallen off the workout train for a bit), I decided to push myself too. When I came home from work, I thought about working out but then played Skyrim instead. After seeing my brother's results, I just had to beat him (jealousy alert).

I wasn't ready to give up the idea that I am not the most fit in the family, so I had to push myself. Hard. I didn't run 2 miles because of how hard I pushed myself almost out of the blue, but I did 1.5 miles in 12'20", which comes out to a 8'13" average pace. I pushed myself to my literal limits just to say I have a faster pace, a pace that is currently 46 seconds faster per mile.

See, now a bit of friendly brother rivalry to push each other to get into better shape isn't the worst thing, but if I get too caught up in it, either I will injure myself or he will injure himself, or I will make things sour between us because I never let him celebrate his victories and rub it in that I managed to be in better shape, even though I have unfair advantages such as being younger, having more time, and having not terribly long ago had a really consistent workout routine.

So this is where I'm at for today. I experienced jealousy in my love life when I heard a fictional character eventually got the girl who had a mutual love but then split apart, and I was jealous that my brother was doing something good for himself that I pushed myself hard.

What have I become? Just a manifestation of jealousy? This cannot be me. I don't want it to be me.

So I must be careful from here on out.