A couple weeks ago at church, the minister started to do a sermon about being happy with what you have. She then realized that she wanted to talk more about identifying the things you want to bring into your life and making a plan for how to get them. 

She asked us to make a “jealousy map” by writing the names of the people we were jealous of, the specific qualities/things we were jealous of, and what it might look like for us to bring that quality/thing into our lives. 

I immediately thought back to my twenties when I harbored lots of jealousy for the people around me. I

There are many paths my life could have taken. If I didn’t go into the field of preK-12 education, I might have been a gay rights lawyer. Or a dancer. 

Yes, I have a not-so-secret passion for dancing. In fact, I was a cheerleader for eight years of my life (all the way through varsity) just because I loved the dancing part. I couldn’t stomach the rest of it, so I quit and joined the swim team in 11th grade. 

But dancing! I love it. And I’ve been thinking about ways to reconnect with it. 

The other day, I remembered that many years ago, I used to daydream about having