All content © 2005 Kephra Rubin
Jealousy
Jealousy, it's been the root of some of the most vicious and heinous crimes. It's been the root of suicides, break ups, depression, and REALLY crappy relationships. What's the deal with jealousy? Why do so many people in relationships have a hard time ridding themselves of it?
Let's take a look at today's relationships, and see what we can uncover:
The problem, from what I've uncovered, is that people often use their mate as a form of self justification. "I've got a great husband so my life must be great." "I've got a great wife so I must be a sexy guy" whatever the thoughts are, people tend to look to the outside world for things that can only be found internally. You should never be happy because you have someone to be in a relationship with. Be a happy person, who is glad to be in a relationship because you're with someone you can share that happiness with.
Often I think the inability for people to be happy, lies in their perspective of what happiness is.
Few people look at happiness as a state of mind, rather they view it as an event, a single point in time. It's because of this point of view that we have so many people constantly in the pursuit, rarely in attainment, like a donkey with a carrot just out of reach. Buying a car won't put you in a state of happiness. If you are in a state of UNhappiness, the car will make you feel better for maybe twenty minutes, even a whole day. But eventually you'll fall back to unhappiness. It's not possible to always be happy, but if you are in a state of happiness, then when something makes your life miserable, it will only do it for 20 minutes, maybe a whole day. It's when we rely on trinkets and people to make ourselves happy that we constantly fall back down to our original state of unhappiness.
Okay kids, I know there's millions of you that don't do drugs, and the millions that do them, won't listen, but for those who don't let's take a quick look at them, just to back up what we're saying. If you've got a friend who does drugs, have you ever noticed how they always look for the quick fix to their problems? They're always in the pursuit of one thing to make all the other things go away. They're upset, they drink to the point where they can't remember what they were upset about. They wake up the next day, feel fine for a few hours, only to be back where they started. So they do some coke, maybe something more powerful will fix it… nope, back where they started.
Why do you think people that do drugs, so often escalate? All of my friends that swore they'd never smoke weed, but drank, ended up smoking weed, and when they said they'd never do coke, only weed, it was probably because they were thinking about doing it. And yeah, they ended up doing it.
Is this an anti drug commercial? No, you want to do drugs, do them, I don't care about you. Shoot yourself, whore yourself out, keep yourself clean and walk a normal life, whatever, it's all the same to me. Just come correct around me regardless. We're talking about drugs because whether people want to admit it or not, that's what drugs are, a means of escape, so let's just accept that as being true, forget about whether you do drugs or not. Just accept it, drugs are for people who don't want to, or don't know how to, face a problem.
I've never met a person that was into drugs that was in a state of happiness, only in the pursuit of it. It's that perspective, it's their belief that happiness is a thing, an object, something to attain, that puts them down the wrong path. Look at happiness as if it were a dimension of life. Like time. Time is time, it can bend it can warp, but it's always there. It doesn't matter if you don't know where the time went, it was still there. And it's always there, even when time stops for you. What you do with time is completely up to you.
Have you ever felt helpless because you just can't seem to find happiness? You think you found it, but then one thing goes wrong and you fall into a state of depression immediately? Did you get pills to help you with this? Were you diagnosed with some form of chronic depression. It's my belief (not my proof, just my belief from what I've seen in my own life) that the majority of prescriptions either aren't needed, or are placebos (things said to be a cure, when really they're not, pills that look like pills but are merely starch and filler, yet a "cure" seems to arise from them). So why does this happen for these people that my rule applies to? No one understands what happiness is. We're never taught it.
When we are born, we are given the potential to do a lot, but without proper development of our skills and understanding, we won't have the ability or understanding to do any of what our potential gives us the opportunity to do. People have this idea that they should naturally be able to meet friends, partners, and sexual encounters. That we should naturally be able to understand what happiness is, what sadness is, what anger is.
Do you know what's natural? It's natural for a bird to fly, a fish to swim, it's natural for anything that happens in nature to happen. What are some things that separate us from other animals (yes, we are animals, sorry but it's true) Well there's that nifty opposable thumb… but really our one advantage over the rest is our brain.
So if a bird flies, and a fish swims, doesn't a human think? Not just think but think at a much more advanced level then any other animal on the planet? So if you assume that you shouldn't need to think in order to figure out how to meet partners, have sex, make friends, get jobs, or comprehend happiness…
Wouldn't you say that you're NOT using the ONE trait that makes you valuable in this world? In that case you're not using the ONE trait that gives you some kind of purpose over a jellyfish or sea sponge? Do you believe in god? Or some form of god? What would your god say? Forget that, what would your dad say, if he handed you a hammer to drive some nails into a piece of wood and you started using your head instead? How annoyed would he be when he had to patch up your puncture wounds? Why would he be annoyed? The ONE tool, the ONLY tool that you needed to get the job done… you didn't use.
I talk about this in my book Kill The Crap In Dating: For Men, a natural isn't someone who wakes up one day and knows what he's doing. A natural is someone who wakes up one day, tries to do something, fails at it, but STILL enjoys doing it. Enjoys it so much, that they keep on doing it, in spite of failure. And because of this constant LEARNING process, they eventually become so skilled at it, that they don't even need to think about it anymore.
There was a point when walking took up all of your brain power, now it simply happens. Wow, you must just be a natural, so I guess babies everywhere are getting depressed and giving up. NO, they're not, because at that age we haven't taught our children the wrong things yet. So from a completely natural, uncontaiminated way of thinking, failure has little effect on the human spirit. But after years of LEARNING the wrong things, failure is the scariest thing on the planet. So what do you need to do? Do you need to go bungee jumping so you can face your fear of heights? Well, that might help, but I think it's more important that you face your fears (which is where that neediness that causes depression comes from, fear) by back tracking.
Work your way back from where you are right now, and ask yourself questions like "Why did that make me angry?" and when you get the honest answer to that question, probably "Because it made me feel like that person thought I was obsolete or unimportant" follow that answer up with another question. For example, in this instance "Well why is it so important for me to be valued by others?" and try not to answer these questions with what you think you're supposed to answer. What I mean by that is, for this hypothetical person, they'd probably answer something like "because I don't value myself" thinking that's what they're supposed to say, when really, the honest answer is "Because I'm afraid of being alone". Now follow that up; "Why am I afraid of being alone" see that's more difficult to answer, because it makes you actually think. It makes you actually use the one tool that was given to you.
Funny how people tend to try and NOT use the ONLY tool they have to make their life better.
Jealousy to a certain extent is healthy for a relationship; it's a very SMALL extent. But in the end, jealousy has little or nothing to do with your partner. If your partner has never cheated on you to your knowledge, the fear of them cheating will actually drive them to cheat. The fear of them leaving you will make them want to leave. The only true way to rid yourself of the unhealthy jealousy to face yourself, every day, day after day, not in search of a pill, or a single realization that will cure all of your problems, but in search of a learning experience, one that will allow you to use your ONE TOOL. At the least, you'll never be bored again; boredom is the source of many stupid acts.
Note: If your partner has cheated on you, leave them. That's just my unofficial advice. Leave them, but instead, ask yourself "why did they cheat?" and be honest about it, because if you use your brain, your one tool, you may learn that you were partially the cause. Maybe you're a very withdrawn person and it's because of that lack of involvement that your partner is seeking companionship elsewhere. Whatever the case may be, use it as a learning experience, go out there, try again, but this time don't make the same mistakes twice (this requires you to know what mistakes you've made, and to know which ones you DIDN'T make. What did you do right? What did you do wrong?)
Use the tool you were given for the job, otherwise you'll just end up banging your head against the wall.
-Kill The Crap-
copyright 2005 Kephra Rubin
Believe it or not, certain aspects of social interaction are the same regardless of what category you put them in. Being interesting, funny, exciting, unique and confident will get you ahead in anything from dating to relationships, sex, even friendship. Get a copy of my now Therapist Approved book Kill The Crap(tm) In Dating: For Men and you'll learn how to connect with your inner badass and stop taking crap from people that you don't deserve. All while learning how to let your gaurd down enough to find a connection with that special someone, and the mindset needed to make them laugh and love through the night.