Green Eyes

The last time I checked, the documented world population was approximately 7.8 billion people. That’s a great deal of people living and breathing on this earth. I don’t understand how we as humans tend to behave in such a way that we aren’t satisfied with being our best selves. We strive to be everyone else’s cup of tea. I have sat with this and thought about it for a while. I have come to the conclusion that it is the spirit of envy that drives this dissatisfaction with our being.

In trying to figure out why envy is such an attractive spirit to so many of us human beings, I noticed that envy usually starts from a lack of self-acceptance. When I was a young child, I lived in a home with my grandmother and numerous extended family members. I felt completely comfortable in my environment. When I became school- aged and started to gain knowledge of another family dynamic, which was supported and enforced at school and on television, my young and impressionable mind started to long for the family dynamic that wasn’t mine. It seemed, from my limited understanding, as if the children who were growing up with that family dynamic somehow had better lives. Especially those who were on television. This way of thinking began to break down the deeply rooted comfort I felt in my own home. I began to lack appreciation and acceptance for the goodness that was being given to me on a consistent basis. I thought I wanted what others had without even having full knowledge of what that was. All I knew was my own life, and all I was doing with it was frowning upon it because it didn’t measure up to some standard that was being created in my own mind about others. Thankfully for me, that phase didn’t last long. My family had far too strong of a foundation in who we are, and before long, I grew appreciation and pride for what was ours.

We are somehow tricked into believing that someone else’s life is comparable to our own unique life and personal destiny. We have been taught and we have accepted this narrative of measurement and comparison. It is supported under the guise of entertainment, social media, and celebrity. We spend the currency of our time watching and listening and comparing. We have lost the focus of trying to be a better person today than we were yesterday. We forget to look inside and begin to search for our essence. We start to measure our success based on what success looks like to us in others. When we fall into this trap, it seems so hard to escape from it. It almost seems like the obsession with comparison drives us to a place that lacks adoration and support for our fellow humans. We often make the mistake of believing that whatever the “it” is, we can do it better, we can be it better. There are so many ways our society supports this type of spiritual sickness. It is the kind of spirit that tends to grow from being hidden behind compliments. It thrives through gaining information for the sole purpose of feeding ill will and ill intent to our souls. We have grown to be good at it. We have become such masters in this craft that we have named it everything other than what it really is so that we give ourselves permission to feel good about something that is poisonous to the balance of unity and strength.

On the other side of that, we create the false narrative that we alone are responsible for our greatness. We tend to ignore the energies and spirits that walk alongside us and every other human being, our own Ori, our Ancestors, Irunmole, Egbe, Orisa, which are constantly supporting and uplifting. It is completely okay to honor the life we have and strive to make it better. It is not healthy to diminish our own life based on what we perceive someone else’s situation to be. Remember, we don’t know the personal and ancestral sacrifices someone has endured to be where they are on their journey. Learn to appreciate your own. Don’t allow the eyes of envy to cloud your vision and blind you to the beauty in you!