“It must be nice…”

How often have you heard this line? That envy. There are times I feel the need to censor what I am saying when it comes to something wonderful that is happening in my life or my son’s life. To me it is news. Yet, there are some people who have envy and jealousy when something lovely happens to someone else. Most of the time when things are difficult and challenging, I don’t share that with them, those who have that envy bent. It is interesting how we shade things and “good” or “bad” when what happens just is neither.

What a blessing to share news with someone who is excited for you when you are excited and you can be excited for them, too. And when times are tough, that friend can be very heartfelt caring, not comparing their life to yours or your life to theirs, that one-up thing. Also, we can focus on what we do not have and compare to what other people who have what we wish we could have. That is part of envy where we believe others have way more than we do. When, really, we do have a lot if we would begin to pay attention to what we do have in our lives, our friends, the simplest things. Finding what the blessings are in our life can raise our spirits and open our heart to more gifts. Sometimes the gifts we wish for do not happen and those can be gifts, too. Those unanswered prayers. We can leave the doors and our hearts open for something better.

There have been times when I was envious of someone who I thought got a better deal, that I thought their grass was greener than mine. It took time to back off from that kind of thinking. What was their gain would not necessarily be better for me or even the best fit. We all have our struggles which we are not always privy to. There is a back story to just about everything. We generally do not know what they went through or how much work they put in to achieve their gain. Even when we are walking along side of each other, we still are on our own separate paths. These paths can add much in shared experience for us to grow. What we may think we want to help make our lives easier may not even be what’s best of us – short-run or long-run. Passing time can give us much more clarity.

I have learned to be grateful for what I do have while opening my heart to goodness, gifts, friends who are loving and supportive, cheering for me when I have achieved something or received a lovely gift or accomplished something I have been wanting to master. When it is a darker time, I can count on them to hold my hand and heart through it. In turn, I make sure I am there as best I can for them, too. So when someone says, “It must be nice…”, yes, yes it is to be grateful.