The Green-Eyed Monster Sight

In The Merchant of Venice, 1600, the term green-eyed monster was possibly coined by Shakespeare to denote jealousy:

Portia: "How all the other passions fleet to air,As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy! O love,Be moderate; allay thy ecstasy,In measure rein thy joy; scant this excess.I feel too much thy blessing: make it less,For fear I surfeit."

Thesaurus would define the phrase as a feeling of a jealous envy (especially of a rival). Visual Thesaurus aptly puts it as the process of paying close and continuous attention. Mapping it out further, jealousy is a type of alertness, watchfulness and vigilance.

How then do you differentiate envy from jealousy?

Sometimes it helps to be a couch potato because you learn things from other people. By other people, I mean the characters that I have love watching...the people who have made me company all through the early mornings when my insomniac attacks.

So I gathered, "Jealousy" is knowing that the other person has something that you want and that you are going to try harder to be able to get that thing. "Envy", on the other hand, is knowing that the other person has something that you want and that no matter how hard you try or no matter what you do, you won't be able to have it.

Since my memory gap is getting worst. I always forget to charge my i-pod thus I have to tune-in to the radio just to ignore my boredom. Listening to Wave 89.1 (the most influential radio....that's how they brand their station), I get through traffic getting life's real education. Just last week their topic for their eight-most-top answer segment was how to deal with jealousy. Out of those eight, I only remembered two : You get to talk him more about the thing/person you are jealous about which is like fishing out more information from him; Be open about what you feel and how you feel which means being honest.

Personally? Honestly? How do I carry on with the situation? Whenever I feel that surge of blood pinching through my heart, getting annoyed, feeling a gush of explosion from inside.... I just seem to keep it all to myself. I always think of the scandal it can get me through and the shameless admission that I am insecure. Indeed, Pride almost always overpowers any single sin that I am capable of.

Oh yes, for the petty little things that you get jealous of, it's a little easy to maneuver things and to achieve the things that you want when you know that you can have it. Your green-eyed monster sight should never get hold of you...the whole of you. Normal logic doesn't take place when it takes its course. You are ruled by your emotions and therefore your reactions are irrational. You don't succumb to the unreasonable feeling be it jealousy or envy. So the next time the green-eyed monster sight of yours attack, get a grip of yourself and analyze why and what is it that makes you want it. Who knows? You may find that at the end of it, that thing or person is not worth it after all.