On Loving Loud: Rejoice with Them

I am starting my first post of the year with a line I put down while journaling-No one is incapable of conceiving joy for the success of others.I don't know about you but when people are succeeding and making it in life, I'm the girl on the stands cheering them on. I can't keep still. My friend got an offer to design the layout of a huge magazine. My heart leaped when I saw his text. Our chat history is like a black and white movie. He pours out his anxieties about this huge contract, how he isn't sure he's the right one for the job, how he's never done something like this before. And I wrap up his words in hope and love and confidence in his art and throw it back at him- such a courageous and free way to live.I never want to arrive at a stage in life where I do not want others to succeed. I never want to get so blinded by my own dreams, by how long it's taking me to achieve them that suddenly the victory of others is just another loss to me.People living in the shadows of who and what they could be never fully embrace the realization and beauty of where they are, where their feet are planted, the now- and how they can make the best of it.When we come to understand that none of this living is a race, that our paths are lined up differently before us, that one doesn't have to fall before we can rise, it puts a lot of things into perspective. We are not wired in a way that we can only thrive when others fail. There's enough sun for everybody.Life can be two success stories side by side or it can be one and that is just fine.If where we are has nothing to do with who we are, how is it possible that someone else's footing should so much matter in our own landing that our purpose for climbing in the very first place is traded and lost along the way?If you'll count blessings, start from yours- all that you have- before you look anywhere else. You are whole. Your worth is endless. You are capable and you are moving mountains. Take your eyes off others. Let the only time we look be to cheer, pump our fists in the air in confidence that they can, they will and that they too, are deserving of good things.

Jealousy would be far less torturous if we understood that love is a passion entirely unrelated to our merits - Paul Eldridge

Our love for others is never justified only when we have something they have that we think we ought to have. Our love is louder. Louder than who's ten steps ahead and who's now taking baby steps. Our love is louder than the measure of someone else's triumph against ours.Love takes the spotlight off ourselves. Love says if you're winning, that's a win for me too. Love says your victory matters. Love says you're deserving, you're deserving, you're deserving and that is just enough.