Cast a Cold "I"

I think I have stopped hating my friend's success. And voyeuring on facebook (as I have been jadedly doing the last few minutes or so) is a perfect way to test my newfound strength. "Hey look at that fella", facebook, the tempter, teases, ", "ah, look at that friend, he has a full-time lectureship in a University, why haven't you got that you ass?". "And that fella" the tempter declares with glee, "look at his girlfriend, and you don't even have a girlfriend, you plonker." I glance down at the reels of photographs on the monitor, it's a gorgeous, drunk brunette, pattering out of a nightclub with her stilettos dangling from her arm, and the guy whose arm is wrapped around her lovely waist is a friend I haven't seen in years. And no, I'm not overcome with a paroxysm of rage and jealously. Of course I'm still filled with passion and longing, but you have to train yourself to acquire what Yeats called "casting a cold eye on life and death". And for me the "Cold eye" (or the cold "I", as I sometimes like to call it) you have to be accepting and a little cold with life, or else life will destroy you. And this accepting, cold, streak will help you live a bit.