"Westerners Have Told The History Of Hawai’i As An Inevitable If Occasionally Bittersweet Triumph Of

Zapotec Bride from Juchitán de Zaragoza - Pieter Hugo

How to Cope with Jealous Feelings

1. Understand what jealousy is. It’s a mixture of fear and anger – usually the fear of losing someone who’s important to you, and anger at the person who is “taking over”. Recognise that it’s a destructive and negative emotion - and often nothing good comes out of it.

2. Try and figure out why you’re feeling jealous. Is it related to some past failure that is undermining your ability to trust? Are you feeling anxious and insecure? Do you suffer from low self-esteem, or fear of abandonment?

3. Be honest with yourself about how your jealousy affects other people. Do friends or partners always have to justify their actions and thoughts, or always report on where they were, or who they were with? That kind of pressure is destructive in the end, and puts a strain on relationships.

4. Find the courage to tackle your feelings. Decide to question your jealousy every time it surfaces. That will enable you to take positive steps to manage your feelings in a healthier and more constructive way. Some possible questionsto ask yourself include: “Why am I jealous about this?”; “What exactly is making me feel jealous?”; “What or who am I afraid of losing?”; “Why do I feel so threatened?”

5. Work on changing any false beliefs that might be fueling your jealousy. Start this process by identifying the underlying belief, for example “If X leaves me, then I won’t have any friends”; “If Y doesn’t love me then no-one will ever want or love me”. Understand, that beliefs are often false – and that they can be changed through choice. If you change your belief, you change the way you feel.

6. Learn from your jealousy. Jealousy can help understand ourselves better – and teach us important lessons. For example, it’s natural to feel frightened when a relationship is new, and you don’t yet feel secure. This is normal and commonplace! Also, some people DO have a roving eye, and they may lack commitment in the longer term. Better you know that now, than later on.

7. Work on accepting and trusting yourself. That makes it easier to trust others, too, and lessens our tendency to feel jealous of others.

“Sometimes I feel like there’s a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. The moon tonight, there’s a circle around it. Sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing… I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don’t know.”

— Practical Magic (1998)

school schedules are designed in such a way that kids are deprived of adequate food and sleep. the sleep piece has been written on extensively, but it’s quite plain that requiring young people to wake up at 6am during the developmental phase when they need the most sleep and tend to stay up later is a terrible public health move. 

from an eating perspective, it’s just as bad. say a middle or high schooler eats breakfast (if they even eat breakfast) at 7am, then doesn’t eat lunch until 11-12 (and lunch is often inadequate), then has after-school activities, etc. and may not get home until late afternoon, or eat dinner until evening. and kids in school are not generally allowed to snack in class or given time to snack between classes. these gaps between eating times are way too big for adolescents! they need a lot of food–more than adults–to support the growth process, just as they need more sleep.

it’s no wonder many kids start eating reactively in their teens, especially after school or at night–they’re not being adequately fed during the day. even if kids aren’t restricted from eating freely/fully at home, their daily lives regularly involve periods of energy deficiency. add to that the social pressures around body size, and it’s a recipe for disorder at an epidemic level

Twilight pendant

“We have nothing but our freedom. We have nothing to give you but your own freedom. We have no law but the single principle of mutual aid between individuals. We have no government but the single principle of free association. We have no states, no nations, no presidents, no premiers, no chiefs, no generals, no bosses, no bankers, no landlords, no wages, no charity, no police, no soldiers, no wars. Nor do we have much else. We are sharers, not owners. We are not prosperous. None of us is rich. None of us is powerful. If it is Anarres you want, if it is the future you seek, then I tell you that you must come to it with empty hands. You must come to it alone, and naked, as the child comes into the world, into his future, without any past, without any property, wholly dependent on other people for his life. You cannot take what you have not given, and you must give yourself. You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed

Marianela Nunez and Federico Bonelli in rehearsal for Acosta’s Carmen

always choose to be with someone who is emotionally intelligent. don’t get caught up in the fact that you are loved, because love comes easy. but loving someone in the way they need, and understanding why they need to be loved like that is what a relationship is about.

Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance