Of successes, wants and unwanted jealousy

Actually everybody to a certain extent wants to succeed in some way or other.

Have you ever watched your friends succeed and felt incredibly jealous, upset yet happy at the same time? I don't know, is it very bad to feel jealous and upset? I experience these emotions quite frequently. I feel guilty whenever I feel emotions like that regarding a friend's success, especially if that friend really deserve that success. That's a good thing right, it means my friends are really moving somewhere. Only that it's really nice for them, but not for me on the inside. Man, I feel like a complete hypocrite. Don't tell me politically correct things and say they are our friends and we should be happy for them. "Should" is not equals "are". We can think one thing but feel another... Which is what's really bugging me.

When we feel jealous or upset, it is likely that they are holding something we want but don't have. Sometimes I think I can never have that which I want, then I'll tell myself that if I want I can always work for it.

Remember that astro-palmistry master who once set up a booth in NUS over several semesters? You might remember that I once paid him to have my "fortune" told. It wasn't exactly my fortune, but let's just leave it at that. I was at one of my lowest points in life then and needed some sort of guidance, any guidance. He told me really good things, stuff like the sky is the limit for me and if I make the right choice at the right time I can make enough money by 30+ for it to continue accumulating on its own and he kept repeating that I'm really intelligent, blah blah blah. I think I just think too much and I think probably about half of the students there have it good as well anyway. At that point in time such remarks were kind of what I needed to pull me up a little, make me believe in myself, allow me to sit through an examination without walking out.

Somebody once said that knowing what you're capable of is a burden and I agree. Knowing what you can do but that you are not performing up to that mark due to various reasons (one of which might be your own laziness) is... demoralizing. It doesn't matter if the idea of what you can do comes from somebody else or from yourself. That belief is already integrated into ourselves. When I know I can be better, I am constantly looking up there. I might have said this before but I'll reiterate again: I suspect I am missing something down here. I want to be up there, but I'm not climbing and the reason I'm not climbing is because I've got my eyes up there and can't see what's right at my feet.

That's why it's so difficult to accept others' successes, especially when I think that I can do it. Think. Think. That's all I do. See? Repeatedly, I have questioned myself if I can really do it, then I wonder why am I questioning myself and not doing something about it.

Then I think more, start to feel tired and start to spout rubbish, like now. It's 12.42AM, I've almost finished this entry and I feel a little better. Have to go ravage through my Health Psychology readings for tomorrow's tutorial, now.

tstar. 21 years in age. Wishing she is older in mind.