Jealousy.

credit: Youtube

This song came to mind only 'cause I grew up on Natalie and I have to educate some readers with her pure genius.

Oh yeah, and it's the title of this post.

PS Nick Jonas' "Jealous" was a close second, but Priyanka kind of ruined him for me

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Jealousy is a very common feeling that everyone harbors every once in a while.

Heck, I feel it almost every day for one reason or another, and I am not ashamed to admit it.

I want that pizza. His phone is better than mine. Her hair isn't frizzing in this humidity.

I like those shoes.

Being a lover of travel, it seems to be even harder to elude

After all (and especially), in today's society, how can anyone avoid seeing someone's perfect vacation play out all over their newsfeed every day? Sometimes more than once a day!

And okay, okay. I'll admit it. I am guilty of serial posting my vacation pics, too.

The exact thing I'm complaining about, I do myself. Probably even more annoyingly than most.

(Some of my albums are 500 pictures - eck!)

But why? - you ask.

I do it for two reasons:

1. I want to have a medium where all my pictures are stored without having to dedicate megabytes of hard-drive space on my laptop (barring the apocalypse shutting down the internet, this plan seems fool-proof)

-and-

2. I invested in a decent camera, so I'll be damned if I don't get to showcase my amazing skills of capturing lobster rolls on a bed of lettuce.

However, when the shoe is on the other foot and I am looking at other people's lobster rolls... I used to get uncontrollably jealous. How dare they be on vacation?! How dare they visit a place that I have not?!

Side note: If you've never felt this way, I apologize for how extremely petty this sounds... though I ask you to be honest with yourself; you've probably seen green, too. No shame! It's natural.

Now-

What I have learned to do instead these days, is to take people's positively amazing posts about their vacation and use it as an outline or input into my bucket list.

Use it as a love letter to a land I have not been, but long for.

Example:

Oh, Susie went to Dubai for a week in November when the weather is perfect and the tourism is low?

Well, maybe I can't go in November, but I can plan to visit in the future!

And then I'll write down that adorable coffee shop that was in a few of her photos because that espresso looks beyond.

Wow, Susie, good for you. Thanks for enhancing my life goals.

Or more recently:

My sister and her fiancé are currently in Ireland doing all the amazing things and more.

They have done some things that I haven't done yet, and always wanted to.

Instead of being uncontrollably jealous, I am putting that back on the old bucket list for a future visit.

I've also found that

sometimes the biggest motivator is working for something we don't have ... yet

but want very badly

(hashtag Growth Mindset, hashtag captain obvious )

Basically, be happy and keep moving

So watch out Newsfeed. I'm takin' notes.

And if I message you, now you know it's because your vacation looked AMAZING and I was inspired!

... and maybe even a little jealous ;)

skål xx