Jealousy is an ugly thing

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I had a bit of an Godly moment yesterday. I have been struggling at work, with all the negativity, and getting drawn into conversations that fuel the negativity, and I had a realisation that I, myself, am negative mostly through jealously. How I had this realisation is that an email from one of the factories came through thanking 6 girls from the lab for all of their contribution in some extra testing that has been done. I was not one of them and my INSTANT reaction was 'well thats not fair, I don't know HOW to do that test, IF I knew how to do that test then I would have helped do the testing, and then I, too, would have this big thank you that went lab wide'. So of course I deleted the email (didn't thank me, I don't want to keep it) and sat and stewed it over for a minute or so, with my thoughts (thank you Satan) saying, well it's not like some of these girls are as INTELLIGENT as me, and not all of them work as HARD as me, life is SO UNFAIR! And then, BANG, it hit me, as I was telling Satan to GO AWAY, God said 'you are bitter and mean about these girls because you are JEALOUS! (and selfish too when I think about it). I have this very weird attitude that if I am not being thanked then NO-ONE should get thanked, they are overshadowing me. Well that is just plain BUNKIM. Gees, I think this girl (ie me, a very very old girl ... lol) needs to GROW UP! Who are they overshadowing me in front of, certainly not God, he sees and knows all. And EVERYONE deserves to be recognised for the hard work that they do, not just me. So I think that this little experience has been a bit of an eyeopener for me. Plus seeing how pleased some of them were at receiving this recognition, after I swallowed my pride and showed them the email (as they had not gotten to their computers yet), seemed to make most of my jealousy disappear. I won't be fixed 'overnight' but I am glad that I am starting to recognise where some of my negative behaviours are rooted, and its nice to know that when I send Satan away from my thoughts, God is quick to fill in the 'gap'

I still do not know how to distance myself from the negative conversations. I TRY to distance myself, and to participate and create 'fun' conversations, but there are some ladies who do 'whisper' and sometimes they 'whisper' to me. I do not want to become further isolated from my work colleagues, as I already feel a bit on the outside having not grown up in the area. However, I actually do not have an interest in who has been cheated on/broken up/got into a fight/etc, but the less I listen to these conversations, the further isolated I feel as I have no idea as to what is going on. BUT, now I think about it, the majority of the ladies who participate in these conversations may think of THEMSELVES as the 'cool kids' (bearing in mind the average age of them would be around 40), I am not actually too worried whether they LIKE me or not, it's not like I am particularly fond of their behaviour and WANT to socialise with them (just have to because of work). So, if I put their little 'click' aside then there is still another selection of ladies who I do like, and can socialise with, and perhaps my energy is better spent on forming 'bonds' with them, rather than 'cringing' at, and 'sighing' at, and 'wishing they were different' at the 'cool kids'. I also have to loosen up and stop thinking that if 'such and such was worthy of my friendship then they wouldn't want to talk to so-and-so, I mean, if they like me then how could they possibly like them? Wouldn't they MUCH rather sit with ME and talk to ME than THEM (see how like a child I am!) Well hasn't this been an eyeopener! I am VERY self centred, and VERY judgemental, and VERY dictatory (if there is such a word). I tend to be a bit of an unhappy and grumpy person, and that is all down to ME and how I INTERPRET the world.

Goodness God, haven't you got me thinking A LOT about MY behaviour rather than other peoples behaviour. Lesson learned, not to say I won't need to learn it again, and again, I just hope I am a bit quicker to learn, and slower to judge in the future. It should save myself a lot of unnecessary heartache.