I am an extremely competitive person. I think it’s due to all my years playing sports but I also know I’ve been like this most of my life.
After a weekend filled with Easter egg hunts I couldn’t help but think about how competitive these things get. Fortunately the ones we did this weekend were low key and not crazy but that didn’t stop my oldest kids from wanting to find as many eggs as possible.
I still will never forget an egg hunt my brother and I went to with my grandfather at the Hibernians club when I was around 7-8 and he was 4 or 5. We went out back of the club and you had to run and get one egg which had a ticket for your prize.
I got a small chocolate bunny which should have been fine, a good enough prize. But wouldn’t you know my brother won a huge chocolate bunny. If was literally the size of him, maybe even bigger.
And I was so upset and jealous. Which in hindsight is so stupid as this was all over the size of the chocolate bunnies which should have been good enough for me but it wasn’t. I still to this day am not over that egg hunt. Ironically my dad brought this up last week so it was a pretty memorable event in the family. Or at least the size of my brother’s bunny was memorable.
So I share the memories of this one egg hunt to point out how freaking competitive I was even at an early age. And it’s also amazing how we don’t forget something upsetting or that made us jealous. I have such trouble letting go of grudges (hence my problem with my replacement at work!) that I’m still not over some stupid chocolate bunny from an egg hunt over 30 years ago!
It’s time to move on! How have I not gotten past the jealousy of my brother winning a big prize while I got a small one. Who cares? Why am I holding in to such a stupid thing from so long ago?
It’s because it’s hard to lose or miss out. It’s hard when we try and feel we deserve an equal opportunity at the prize but we don’t get it due to no fault of our own. But that’s life. Life isn’t fair. We sometimes try hard and still lose. Others get lucky and we don’t.
But we can’t get bogged down and stuck in these moments. I know I have and still do get caught up in what I missed out on even when it’s something as meaningless as a chocolate bunny.
We have to move on even when we’re upset. We have to get past the fact that we missed out and life isn’t fair and we will be fine. Ruminating on what we lost out on accomplishes nothing.
So hopefully I began to follow my own advice and let go of the meaningless junk I get caught up in way too frequently. It’s ok to be upset over something meaningful like losing a job but leave it at that. Don’t get caught up in if my replacement is qualified or not, how the pool is doing or anything else related to the old job. I lost out due to no fault of my own and I need to move on. I have a less stressful more flexible job and can do most of my work from home. So I still got something even it’s not the “prize” I was hoping for when I returned to work.
I somehow managed to connect egg hunts to my job loss but that’s what happens sometimes with writing. You start off with a theme or idea and just kind of see where it goes.
Maybe someday I’ll get past the jealousy of my brother for his giant chocolate bunny at the Hibernian egg hunt. But I’m such a competitive person I’m not so sure I ever will!
#egghunt #Easteregghunt #chocolatebunny #prizes #jealousy #movingon #stuckinamoment #readyforthehunt
