I found these two little entries as drafts floating around my posts list. They're my thoughts on two of my faults that I guess I felt I shouldn't post at the time of writing them. I like what I've written though. They're embarrassing, and unflattering, but if admitting an imperfection is the first step to overcoming it, I guess I'm taking a pretty good step by publishing them.
Written sometime at the end of 2013//
Jealousy is the ugliest affliction. It turns others' accomplishments into a bitter poison that simmers in your stomach and fills your chest with tight frustration. Jealously is the terrible side-effect of an unhealthy ego, showing us how we truly view ourselves.
I have seen so much of jealousy's twisted face lately. It's not directed at me, but I find it spread across the internet. Sharp words and anonymous complaints against successful bloggers, passive-aggressive comments on Instagram photos, bullying and bickering and hateful obsessions. What a horrible way to live, with that vicious little monster in your ear, tearing down others, telling you that you're not good enough.
This past month I've had a few envy attacks of my own. They strike when I am feeling lazy and unmotivated, when I feel like I'm not progressing or creating or living the life that I think I ought to be. They leave me feeling bitter and and cheated and worthless. I've started to recognize those nasty little thoughts when they first begin to creep into my mind and I've learned to take a good look in the mirror. You don't envy a body when you feel healthy and lovely, you don't envy a relationship when you value the people in your life, and you don't envy a blog or a home or a life when you are content with your own. I've learned that hope, hard-work, and gratitude are envy's antidote. I feel hopeful and optimistic about my future and its ability to bring me the things that I admire in others' lives and I am trying to do the work that it takes to achieve those goals. I focus on loving my life, and making it a life worth loving. I try to change the things that upset me, to challenge my weaknesses.
Written sometime in the middle of March 2014//
I am working on my temper. Of my many faults, my temper is one that is especially harmful to myself and those around me.
Somehow I balance being both non-confrontational and exhaustively expressive. I am generally calm, but I am also incredibly impatient. These qualities sometimes combine like sparks to dry grass, and I am slamming kitchen drawers and flinging forks into the sink with absolutely unnecessary force. It's embarrassing to write about. It's embarrassing to think about, because my reactions are so perfectly childish. I am an expert at expressing myself, at analyzing and translating my feelings. I want others to know what I'm thinking and how I feel. This trait is usually manifested in incessant "I love you's" and in compliments and cuddles and meandering explanations of my decisions and philosophies. It's a narcissistic trait really, valuing my own internal state so much that I practically shout it from our back porch just so no one will miss out. I mean, isn't that kind of what I'm doing here? But when my feelings turn black, when I become frustrated or annoyed, the same need springs forth in the form of passive-aggressive toddler-like tantrums of foot stamping (seriously) and angry sighs. Once again, I am so embarrassed that I actually do these things sometimes.
I've realized recently that I'm usually aware of myself in these moments. There is this split-second of clarity before an outburst when my little voice of reason whimpers, "you really don't have to do this." I'm working hard to stop shoving it aside like the neutral bystander in the way of a school bully's tirade.
I try to remember the word, "timshel." It's a Hebrew word that I had displayed in my room on a Young Women's handout for a long time. It translates as, "thou mayest." It reminds me that there is a choice. There is a choice involved in being angry, in slamming doors, in feeling sorrow and hopelessness and happiness. We choose our reactions, and I am working on choosing better ones.
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