Chapter Twelve: Of Jealousy and Pride (~jinghan)

When you are at your prime; when you are the smart one, the cool one, the one in control, the brave, the strong and the winner — Jealousy is a strange concept that has no real meaning in your world. It is something other people feel. And you may ven remark to them that you admire their raw human honesty to admit such a feeling so dark and grimy and unknown to you that it feels you with compassion.

But…

When you are in the depth of struggle, when your mind feels like rusty cogs and cotton fluff, when your future is mirky and tastes like clay water, when you’re feeling less than smart, less than brave and definitely not in control…

I’m sitting in a unknown lecture hall, eagerly watching the door like a first year student. Relief. My friend walks in. I expect him to smile at me and greet me and come sit next to me. Sure he does all that, but he also give the lecturer a nod of recognition, and waves and says “hi” to a couple of students on his way over…

It takes you a while to recognise it and to remember its name, but there looms Jealousy.

Subtly, and in a hardly-dare-admit way, I’m jealous of my friends who have had the continuity of staying in Melbourne. They have academic connections, a reputation among peers, roles in the community. They don’t have a patch work study plan, they know what post grad course they’re applying to or areas where they might work. They have interesting subjects to do while I have haphazardly chosen subjects. They got to hang out together during summer – I see the photos full of sun and smiles.

All that I gained from exchange is forgotten in the face of all that I have missed out on.

Then I am reminded of the line from that poem I found last week:

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Perhaps Jealousy, grimy and dark, was waiting to come out all along. The rise of pride and the descent into jealousy both coming from the same habit of always comparing myself to others.

The next few weeks will be a time to attempt to persevere with my struggles without having one eye on someone else. And then when I’ve come through this patch will I be able to continue on through both high and low without caring for where I stand among others?

Watch this space to find out…