Jealousy

For lots of years I destroyed my life by being jealous. No, not the kind of jealousy that pours out of your body on everything you do. It was just a “healthy”, “non-harmful” jealousy about people’s achievements. The kind of jealousy that we learn to be the fuel for our personal improvement (you know - if someone buys a big house, just work harder and buy an even bigger house yourself).

It would drive me crazy seeing people happy because of their brand new cars, their recent trips to Aruba or just because they found their perfect match for life. If I couldn’t be the one with THE best grades at school, a long period of depression would certainly follow. It made me sad seeing people happy. Mainly if I could not achieve happiness through similar means.

But one day I realized a very simple principle: people are just hugely different. Someone’s success does not mean you failed. It just means that either your time hasn’t come yet or your are succeeding in different areas. You may be, for instance, having a lot of success in the education of your kids, while your neighbor is shinning with professional success banging on his door. You are not less than him - neither is he less than you: you are both just in different boats which are both definitely pointing to the same and undeniable direction of decay.

It makes me really sad when I read articles like this one. It seems that a lot of people are just in the “jealousy path” I endured myself in the past: they become sad by seeing others’ happiness. Seeing others succeed in areas they still have something to achieve is just too painful and then feelings like hate and despise do erupt (check the comments of the article and reach your conclusions).

I would really like to see people loving each other; not in the false and/or physical sense the Hippies of the 60’s had but truly accepting others’ different achievements and respecting the fact that people have control over their lives. Your jealousy does not change a thing - just makes you feel worst.