The Green Monster is in my closet!

I really wish it wasn't true, but my jealousy of my friend seems to just get worse. I remember one of my good friends told me that when you're jealous of one, just stay away for a while. I guess I really need that as much as I love my friend, but she doesn't really live here so she'll go back home soon. But, she is my best friend so I can never always rely on the fact that she's gonna be away. I have to recover on my own even with her around, but I guess I would still need a break to gain more confidence in myself.

The things I'm jealous about are not only all the attention that she gets, but also the fact that she's very popular with people and it just makes me feel like I'm not as popular and that I should be. The kind of personality she has is almost completely opposite to mine. She's hyper and outgoing and fun while I am mostly zen and quieter. However, I still can't help feeling jealous. It's quite a torturing feeling and it just reminds me of those movies like Princess and the Frog where I'm like the jealous little man who screws over the prince who is handsome and joyful. I DO NOT want to be like this!

I need to take steps to ride of this jealousy. I don't want to ever start hating my best friend because of how jealous of her I am.

To find some advice, I looked to Galadarling who always gives the best advice ever. So here is an excerpt of what I wanted to highlight but reading her full article would be more useful to you.

Jealousy teaches us a lot about ourselves. If we can step back from the emotions flaring up, a more thorough examination of the situation can be a complete revelation. Why are you jealous of Jane? Do you think she’ll leave you for someone else? Do you feel unpopular in comparison? Does being around her make you feel like a dunce?

The reason jealousy is so destructive is that the whole reason it exists is because you are comparing yourself to someone else. We all do this at some point or another, but we could devote our lives to making comparisons between ourselves & whoever — it doesn’t alter reality in any real way! You will still be you, & they will still be whoever they are. I remember reading Freaky Friday when I was a kid, about a mother & daughter swapping places — fortunately, life isn’t like that!

Another thing about jealousy is that it can be so all-consuming that it can completely blind you to reality. People feel jealous of others because they’ve made a value judgment (“Sarah has wealthier parents than I do”) & attached importance to it (“I believe having wealthy parents is significant”). In this example, why is having a well-to-do family important to you? Additionally, your assumption that so-&-so is better off than you isn’t even true for everyone. The Crown Prince of Brunei, for example, would probably think Sarah’s parents were little more than well-dressed vagrants. The whole thing is very subjective.  

Make a decision right now: that you will put yourself first, & that your personal happiness & security are your top priority. Then go about making that your reality, in a 100% healthy, constructive way. Work on yourself from the ground up, in a holistic manner. Start journalling & sorting out your feelings. Read up on the concept of radical self love. Listen to what your mind & body are trying to tell you, then act on it. If you need to see a nutritionist, a therapist, a spiritual guru, do it! If you need to get in touch with your estranged family & clear the air, start now! If you need to cull negative people from your life, please go right ahead!

Improve yourself every day! Take your radical self love bible, go to a cafe & make yourself some goals. Make a list of things you like about yourself & refer to them all the time — if you can’t write the list, get a good friend to start it for you! Think about things that would make you happy, & write them down. Do you want to study in Paris or become a famous photographer? Start making steps in the right direction — take an extracurricular class or make it your aim to shoot 5 great photos a week.

Do whatever it takes to make you feel good. That might mean weird changes occur, like you stop going out drinking with your friends every weekend, or you turn down that girl you’re really interested in, because you know she’s cruel to her lovers. Do what you have to do. If you have to pretend that you care about yourself, do that. It’ll get easier.

In the meantime, try to be happy for your friend. Something that we can easily lose sight of is the fact that just because this or that wonderful thing has happened to someone, that doesn’t mean their life is all beer & skittles! They are still going to have challenges & difficulties, sometimes related to this jealousy-causing event, & sometimes not. They still need your friendship & your support. Don’t pull that from them just because you are dealing with your own stuff.

Continue to concentrate on you, you, you. Discover who you want to be & what you want to do. It’s such an exciting process, which makes the whole thing worth it. Sometimes you might find it scary, but push through. It will make you a better person. As you go through this process, you could find yourself backsliding a bit. Jealousy might start to rear its ugly head, but now it will be much less painful, & you’ll shake it off quickly. 

The more you know & like yourself, the happier you will be. You’ll be more in control of your life, with the ability to steer it anywhere you want to. The coat of jealousy will slip from your shoulders into the street, & you will walk on oblivious.

You are an incredible person with your own uniquely brilliant qualities: know that, & trust that. It might sound crazy, but maybe your friends are jealous of you too, sometimes! Being able to deal with these irrational emotions in a mature way is all part of growing up & becoming a healthy, happy person.  

Although I do know that my friend is not as fortunate as I am in having both parents in her life and I know she is a little bit jealous of that, I don't quite find comfort in that, and that doesn't quite make me feel less jealous of her. I feel like trying to focus on that would make me more evil because I feel like I would be happy about something that she doesn't have that I have. However, I should see the other side of it and that is actually appreciate what I DO have. That is the real point of thinking this way, which is to appreciate ourselves and our own lives.

But, Galadarling is right! The reason I am jealous is because I am comparing myself to my friend on a quality that I am giving great importance to. But, the question is, is it really that important to me? To be popular, to be invited to many things, to get a lot of attention from random guys? It would be nice, yes, but it's not something I totally care about. It's just something that she happens to have and I happen to see and then want like a little child. I should try to keep in mind these things when I am with her.

Another thing I must focus on is loving myself. It's true that that is probably why I am jealous is because I don't love myself enough. And as Galadarling says, I should work on myself holistically from the ground up! I feel like that kind of sounds like getting a self-makeover of not only your looks, but your soul and your attitude on the things in your life.

So in my next post, I will write down a list of goals as well as good qualities that I have. Here begins my journey toward not only getting rid of the green monster that was taking over me but toward "radical self-love" as Galdarling would say!

How to appreciate your uniqueness

Often, I find myself jealous of my friends who get more attention than me or whom I think is much more beautiful than I am. So, I try to buy clothes or put on make-up so that I become more like them so I can attract attention to. I keep striving to be like them without realizing what I'm really doing overtime. I'm trying to become someone I'm just not. It's not that I'm just trying to become more beautiful, but I keep having the image of my friend in my head rather than a more beautiful version of me.

Believe it or not, it really took me a while to realize that I cannot ever look just like my friend. It's completely impossible! Unless, I just decide to have plastic surgery so I can turn into her! So, I will no longer strive to look like her but just focus on the best version of myself. So here are some steps I plan to take:

• To remind myself that I am loved by my amazing friends and family for exactly the way I am, I think about the way that I love my friends and family, and how I would never want them to change or ever look like any model or movie star. I would want them to stay exactly the way they are and nothing more. So, I will think that for myself. My friends and family would never want me to change because they love me for the way I am so I should keep this uniqueness that I have. 
• Okay that wasn't really a step, but more like a reminder. That is something you should do every time you want to be someone you just aren't. And, don't forget these things take PRACTICE!

I also would like to add that my confidence lowers dramatically when I am with my friend who gets a lot of attention. When I am with her, I begin to feel like I'm not as worthy or as interesting as she is. And, thus, I become quiet, and I begin to even lose confidence in myself. I start to feel that if I don't get the same attention or compliments, I'm not as great or beautiful as she is. And, that is certainly untrue. It only gets worse because I become more closed-in and fearful of the thought that no one would want to speak to me. Figuring out what is causing the insecurity in yourself can help you to defeat it by being consciously aware of it and letting it go. But, this like all things requires practice.

Thus, to measure how often I take this step and the impact, I will record my progress later in the blog.

The first step. Acknowledging that you need want to be happier.

Dear all. Let me introduce myself. I am Alice, a half-shy, half-outgoing "little Asian-American girl" who is tired of fulfilling her stereotype her whole entire life of 21 years. Yes, my young little face fools people about my age as well as my ambition. With this deceit, I am also deceived by the way people treat me based on how I look, so I end up acting how I look because of the way I am treated. Or, to be more self-critical, I could simply just say that I am shy. But, I know that is not the case for me. Yes, I did grow up shy but I began to change because when I went to high school after leaving a Catholic school full of preps, I met real people who were really interesting and different and unique. People who weren't all the same just like at the Catholic school where we all had to also wear the same uniform and therefore, their behaviors were pretty uniform. Alright, that's too critical but looking back this is how I feel from my perspective.

Anyway, perhaps also due to the fact that I've been so sheltered in my childhood, I have become a person that lacks self-confidence in myself. I see each stage of my life, elementary school, high school, and college as step-ladders in my life toward higher self-confidence. Just today, I graduate Class of 2012, and now is the time to take my self-confidence to the ultimate level where I will stop at nothing to be happy. This blog will be a kind of documentation or story of my journey toward my pursuit of happiness.



I will create a program for myself for things I should do that comes from tips I read and advice from my peers. They will include things to do, things not to do, how I should think, and how I shouldn't think. I also will measure the impact of the program on me once a week by testing myself at how much less I hesitate to do something or how much more empowered I am to do what I believe in. I will include some positive and negative reminders of why I am pursuing this program toward self-confidence, but they should be concrete examples as vague ones are not as impacting on the mind and emotions. Along the journey (as this no means to an end, but a life-long process), I do want to bring myself to be as happy as I can be as we all should make the best of all situations that we are in rather than just whine and complain about it. Ultimately, I hope to inspire people just like me to have the courage to make themselves happy.