the pinch

Let us be honest about the pinch, since nobody else will be.

It comes uninvited — in the temple queue, at the school gate, at 9 pm in the WhatsApp group. Someone else's child has done well, and for one second something in you tightens. There is an old word for it too — īrṣyā, ईर्ष्या — so you are not the first to feel it, by a few thousand years.

The pinch is information, not sin. It rarely points at the other child at all. It points at a fear of yours — usually the fear that your child will lack something. Look closely and the fear is about you, not them.

You do not owe the pinch any action. No extra tuition needs booking tonight. Notice it, name it, let it walk through and out. Muditā is not the absence of the pinch. It is what you do two breaths after it.

Two breaths. Then rest.