Anyway, I'm here for a serious reason as alluded to by the title post. I want to reflect on some feelings I have over and over. Whenever you have a problem with somebody--in my case for this post, jealousy--it's always good to reflect on why you have those feelings in order to work on hopefully getting rid of them. I know that it's normal to be jealous from time to time, but there's no need for it. I would be better and feel better without it, and one of the purposes in life in my opinion is to work on bettering yourself every day. So why do I feel jealous of people? It's almost always women. I know I shouldn't compete with women. I don't want to, but I can't help but compare myself and then feel bad about myself and less than them when I see women doing every single thing I want to do, and we can't do it all, right? If I went after everything I wanted, as counterintuitive as it sounds, I wouldn't have any time for myself. It seems like it might sound counterintuitive to me because if I'm doing things I want, it's totally time for myself, but I'm talking about me time and breaks. We all need those. Sometimes, we need longer breaks than other times. I personally love my breaks, and I think I need them. I need the time to relax and do whatever I want for a while. For example, my breaks are usually when I find the time to write blog posts, and I LOVE writing blog posts. So my breaks aren't always brain dead slumps. Anyway, back to the point of the post--I compare myself to other women and feel bad about myself when I see women accomplish the things I want that I have yet to accomplish. There's SO MUCH I want to accomplish. For example, I graduated high school with a 4.0 and walked into college with the goal of maintaining my 4.0 streak. I was poor with time management and had some personal stuff pop up and I handled it the best that I could that would also keep me happy. I had to sacrifice my 4.0, I think, in order to not be perpetually miserable. I started to burn out, so I started slacking and made a B. Then, I made another B. Then, a C and two Bs. Then, another B and another C. I think. I don't even remember, and the details don't really matter, but I started dropping. I recovered, thankfully, but then senioritis that last semester, woo-hoo. I was so close to the end that I started giving up too early, and that is okay because we all deserve breaks and we don't need to be perfect, and for some of us, there are more important things in our lives than grades. Priorities mixed with poor time management and something needed to give. Individually, I am okay with my 3.7 college GPA. Then, however, finals ended and my classmates posted their final grades on Facebook, Instagram, etc. Then, graduation came, and cords were handed out for summa cum laude and medals for Presidential Achievement or something along those lines, and I started to feel like less. I was less. I had a less GPA than them, and that was so important to me. Then, I see all the people who made it into medical school, and even though I changed my career plan and I think correctly so, part of me is still sad like they're living part of my dream, and I'm not. I say that because there's more to that dream of being a doctor than being a doctor. There's family and my boyfriend. I don't want those other people's families and boyfriends or girlfriends. I would not trade mine for anything. I would only maybe trade my boyfriend if it came between my boyfriend's life of my families'. Anyway, again, I'm ranting, which I often do (And is somewhat okay because this is a blog about my thoughts and I think it helps you understand my thought processes when I add in even the mundane details.). So I've compared myself scholastically and have felt inadequate for a long time now. I've been doing it since there's been any sort of awards in school, I'm sure. I'm competitive, and I think that's why I've done so well academically so far. I should grow up and change my reasons to being the best I can be instead of necessarily being better than others, but as asshole-ish as this sounds, I'm sure my best can be the best scholastically if I work for it. It's possible for all of us to do it, but in the end, some of us will be above. But I get tunnel vision. I look for GPA, but there are so many more things to make you good academically, and WE CAN'T DO IT ALL. I'm reminding myself and anyone else who stumbles upon this and might need it. So I didn't get the highest GPA, but there might be other skills I have that are better than even those people with better GPAs than me. They can't be better than me at everything. The world doesn't work that way. It's all yin yang. There's a balance. You've got skills and weak spots. School has always been super important to me, which is why I'm so hard on myself and compare myself to others. To me, it's a fact of life that you will be compared to others and on some level, you do need to compete with others and be better than them. Hello, job applications and interviews. But there are other ways than scholastically that you can be better than someone that will score you a job. Practical things like people skills and charisma and decency AKA not being a competitive jerk. It takes time to learn to change these things when you've grown up thinking that this is the way to do it and do well and get ahead. You can work on doing your best without looking at someone else and saying, "Oh, I have to be better than you." Instead of wanting to accomplish what someone else is doing, focus on the accomplishment and yourself, not that that person has it and you can't stand to be below someone else. Another thing that is so important to me (that I don't need to elaborate on--at least not in this post because I've written about it at length on here, I believe) that causes me to compare myself to others in this area is my relationship. I look to other relationships to gauge whether mine is a good one or not. We need standards, right? Right but they don't need to be in the form of other people. They can be in the form of VALUES and CHARACTERISTICS. Focus on you and your partners' values and characteristics to judge whether your relationship is good. I forget these things in the moment--in moments of panic--which makes sense because physiologically, when you panic, you're in stress/fight or flight mode where your body senses what is the emergency and focuses only on that and as quickly as possible, so my brain isn't ready to take time to sit here and think all of this out rationally. And of course, in moments like that, I'm not going to trust myself because I'm panicking. I won't know if the panic and anxiety is talking or my rational, intelligent intuition. Folks, I present to you the anxiety attack. As I'm writing this all out, everything feels so "duh," but it's so hard (LIKE I SAID) in the moment during anxiety. It really, really is, and I feel like I can never overstate how hard it is to do so. These reflections are so helpful for me to figure things out, which is one reason I wanted to start this blog--the other because (as I've said several times before) in case my epiphanies and thought processes and advice can help others. Finally, the main reason I came here to talk about my jealousy is babies. Having my own children one day is SO important to me. In fact, it is one of the main reasons I changed my career (which apparently is not a good reason to give if asked in a job interview so I need to dig deeper to be honest but give a better answer--food for thought for me and maybe someone else out there!). And pregnancy and birth are so important to me, too, not just after all that, so I get jealous when I hear wonderful, dreamy birth stories. Because I know things don't always go as planned, I think it adds to my jealousy even more. It's not like working my hardest will guarantee that I'll get what I want, and I do my best to plan generally for my dream birth so that I have a bigger chance of getting what I want and/or being completely satisfied. I want an orgasmic birth. As of right now, I am SO attracted to my boyfriend. It scares me sometimes because I'll read an article about relationships (I really need to stop doing that. It's comparing again, and I take it too seriously. I need to remember that it's okay not to take or agree with all advice you run into, even if you asked for it.), and the article will say for example that you're ready for marriage when you're past the stage of wanting to be naked all the time.): I still want to be naked around him all the time. That makes me feel like I'm in fake love or in lust instead and that as soon as that goes, I will not have feelings for him anymore because apparently that's all I have, but what I forget is that everyone is different. The author of that article--what he or she described might be true for a handful of people or a lot of people--maybe even MOST people--but it doesn't have to be true for everyone. It can be untrue for my boyfriend and me. I can want to be naked around him all the time and feel horny for him 23/6 (Yes, I do have unhorny moments. I'm surprised, too.) and still have true love or lasting love or real love or the right love or whatever you want to call it--love that can withstand a marriage and all that life can hand you and you're still in love with that person decades later. That is what I want, and I want it with my boyfriend. I think I have it, but you never know what the world holds, so I worry because having that kind of love with him is so important to me because I love him. Orgasmic birth--I want that. I heard a birth story through my favorite podcast (the only one I listen to but who cares? It's so good that it's the only one I listen to. I'll branch out later. The Pregnancy Podcast, I'm looking at you. I think that's what it's called. I will have to find out via my favorite podcast later.(-:) The Birth Hour about a woman whose second birth was an orgasmic birth. I love the way her whole labor started and progressed. THAT is what I want. At one of her last appointments, her midwife told her to go home, do something that I can't remember, have sex with her husband, and sleep. When she climaxed that night, it started her contractions, and she said she realized that orgasms and contractions feel the same when you let go of the fear of pain and surrender, so she was able to have and orgasm every contraction instead. She and her husband even made out and he stimulated her nipples while she was in labor. How hot is that??? I want to do that with my husband/boyfriend (whatever we are when we have kids) when I'm in labor. Horny, present me wants that. Maybe when I'm pregnant and/or in labor, I won't be horny, which will be sad.): So I'm totally jealous of that birth, and I follow the girl on Instagram, and she is so pretty. She has pretty boobs. I'm totally insecure about my boobs and think they can be better, so I compare my boobs to other girls, but I don't want a boob job, so there's not much I can do. I'm hoping if I ever seriously exercise, that'll make them nice with the mix of pregnancy making some women's boobs bigger. I don't want too much more, I don't think, just something fuller-looking. And the woman is an RN. I still miss the prospect of a medical field career. And she is SO knowledgeable about birth. I love birth SO much. I want to know that much about it. I just feel like this woman embodies a lot of what I want, but the work of doing it all overwhelms me and paralyzes me from doing the work (like most things that seem like an overwhelming amount of work to me--schoolwork, resume). My jealousy about her looks and her body stems from me being horny for my boyfriend all the time right now and liking to imagine our future and wanting him to want me this much forever. So I see people with features that are attractive to me and would make me feel attractive if I had them, and I get sad because I feel like not having those features makes me less attractive and like my boyfriend won't always want me the way I want him to because I don't have those attractive features, but that's attractive in my opinion. He's told me several times that he's attracted to me the way that I am, but for some reason (fear?), I can't help but worry about what if/one day, which is pointless to worry about because I will never, ever know. There will always be a one day that never comes and therefore, we never find out what one day holds. The same goes for what if. What if never ends. As soon as we reach it, we start all over with it again. I know I shouldn't worry about those things and trust him since it's his attraction I'm worried about, but I just feel those sucky feelings sometimes. I'm sure we all do. Maybe it never goes away. Maybe what matters is how we handle it. The best thing you can do is probably acknowledge it. Give yourself the freedom to feel it, and move on. Stifling feelings is never good because they only come back stronger when you finally do give in and let yourself feel. And my jealousy about people being knowledgeable is petty. I like to be the best, so I want to be the most knowledgeable about things that are most important to me (pregnancy, birth, and babies for example), and I want to be responsible for everyone's knowledge of the topics. LOL. It's ridiculous, but it's how I feel. Again, I need to acknowledge it. Let myself feel it freely and move on.): I don't want to feel it, though, because it makes me feel really shitty!!!!! But it's going to take work to honestly move on from it. I'm getting better with looks and labor jealousy, even GPA jealousy, but I still need to work on knowledge queen/king jealousy.(-:
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