Last updated on June 23, 2015

I looked, I couldn’t find it. Nowhere to be seen, I am certain it doesn’t live here. No green-eyed monster at our place. I am not jealous, never have been, never will be. “Envy” well that’s another thing, it hit me once when I was just a child. “Work for it, make it happen, set a goal” are wise words, I have been taught then, when I admired something or, when I wanted what others had. We all desire things that others have, that is human nature, but a green eyed monster doesn’t have to be born when it happens. So the daily rerun today is wrong, not everybody is jealous from time to time. 

Although, there is a distinct difference between the words “envy” and “jealousy”. Jealousy is the fear of losing someone or something that is attached to a special person (lovers mostly), while envy is the resentment caused by another person having something that one does not have, but would like to have. Socrates said “Envy is the ulcer of the soul.”

Green eye-ed monster, where does the phrase come from anyway?

The color green is always associated with sickness and it makes sense. You should see my face when I leave a roller coaster. I feel sick in my stomach and my face is slightly yellow/green so I have been told.  Green is although the color of many unripe fruits that cause stomach pains. “Don’t eat the plums when they are still green” was a warning I got when I was a child. Of course I ate them anyway and got punished with stomach pain.

It was actually Shakespeare who used the phrase “green eyed jealousy”  in 1596 when he wrote The Merchant of Venice.

Portia:
How all the other passions fleet to air,
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,
And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy! O love,
Be moderate; allay thy ecstasy,
In measure rein thy joy; scant this excess.
I feel too much thy blessing: make it less,
For fear I surfeit.

Later on, in 1604, the green-eyed monster came alive in Othello.

Lago:
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on; that cuckold lives in bliss
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger;
But, O, what damned minutes tells he o’er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

Othello:

O misery!

So this Lady is blue-eyed…ALWAYS~!

Green-Eyed Lady

We all get jealous from time to time — what wakes the green-eyed monster for you?