How I Learned to Stop Being so Jealous and Finally Get on With My Life
Jealousy and envy are two of the most common but negative and unhelpful emotions that many of us experience. For a long time, I allowed both of these destructive feelings to overwhelm and poison me. This is how I finally got control of them.
Jealousy and envy: a case study
I find it difficult to admit these shortcomings (especially in front of thousands of strangers), but I’ve learned to take a close look at my shortcomings in order to truly overcome them. Maybe it’s because I had Middle Child Syndrome , or maybe it’s a feeling of rivalry that I usually hide, but envy – the feeling that someone is trying to take what you have – and envy is a feeling of resentment, because someone has something that you don’t do ”- both that, and another always happened to me naturally.
My earliest memory of these ugly emotions is from Christmas when I was about nine years old. My younger brother gave my older sister one of his precious transforming toys. (I believe it was Ratchet, an ambulance with red crosses on the sides and an arms post as she turned into a robot.) All I got from him was a pathetic card – and I threw a tantrum. It was a complete fit. I threw the toy against the wall, tore up the card, climbed the stairs and sobbed into my pillow as loud as I could. (I told you these are ugly emotions.)
In subsequent years, similar feelings overwhelmed me when a guy spent more time talking to one of our friends than to me, when a colleague was praised for a job that I was doing just as well, or when people moved on to better and bigger things. while I stayed behind.
It looks like gloating, the opposite of evil, but just as petty: instead of enjoying other people’s failures, I felt tormented by their successes. Behind all this was the belief that I was being punished, that the situation was unfair, and sometimes that I was inadequate.
How I went from jealousy to generosity
My breakthrough was both accidental and gradual, not one defining moment created for television. To tell you the truth, I didn’t even know what damage these feelings had on me and my relationship, and I didn’t even realize that they were happening.
However, a few changes I’ve made over the past decade or so have helped me put things in a healthier perspective:
I became more aware of my feelings and thoughts.
Jealousy and envy are gut feelings, but you can nip them in the bud when they lift their ugly head. But first, you must realize that this is happening. The beginning of my cultivation, I started doing yoga a few years ago, when the gym I was going to offered extremely good classes. Regular exercise alone has probably made its way into other areas of my life : better sleep, increased self-confidence, and improved overall well-being, but yoga is also meditation or mindfulness training in movement. I found that all over paste the labels on their negative feelings and move away from them. (Not only to say “I feel a pang of jealousy,” but also “I’m nervous,” and everything else. In a way, I think people who often experience other negative emotions, such as anger, can benefit from this tactic.)
I learned the difference between competition and comparison
The quote ” comparisons are controversial ” has been attributed to several respected authors. This basically means that comparisons (especially people) are off-putting. Jealousy and envy are all about comparisons and counting the differences between one person and you, as if life were an accounting game to make sure you are not in the red. On the other hand, competition can be beneficial if we don’t take it too seriously and personally. My high school English teacher always said, “Comparison is odious,” and I never realized that until I realized that I was comparing myself to others, not just competing (like a good athlete) with them.
I started to practice gratitude and happiness.
Here’s another quote from Harold Coffin: “Envy is the art of counting the blessings of another, not your own.” When I was younger, I counted my blessings, but somehow they made me feel guilty rather than lucky. I felt that I did not deserve the great world in which I was born, because I did not deserve it. Now, almost every morning I practice gratitude for about ten minutes before getting out of bed. I started this when my daughter was born because she was an old dream – and this time I felt like my luck was deserved, not some fluke to be apologized for. I think that the practice of gratitude has made me more generous not only for the time but also for my emotional energy. I began to celebrate other people’s victories. I used to think, “This is a great article,” but didn’t bother to tell the author, but now I understand that it doesn’t cost me anything to honestly compliment someone else, or even hit the “Like” button. (Also, ” quiet gratitude is of no use to anyone .”)
I learned that praise is not a finite resource.
I used to get annoyed when my parents spent more time with one of my siblings (being a middle child is difficult), but now I understand that such things do not distract me. This does not mean that people limit their love, appreciation, or other good feelings, such as gasoline, during a shortage (for example, by saying, “Hi Whitson, I love your posts,” they say, “Hi Melanie, I hate your “). I learned this while trying to explain to my daughter that she has a brother or sister, but – don’t blame me for that – I also learned this a long time ago, during an episode of Full House, in which Bob Saget explains that his love is similar to an endless supply of water, and his children are all teacups, and love just overflows. It just took me a while to understand and truly embrace this lesson.
All of the above was an attempt to improve myself, but ultimately changed the way I value and interact with others. Am I still jealous or jealous from time to time? Damn it. But as I continue to practice to get better, I become aware of when I’m starting to turn green, and I can control those feelings, not let them control me. This post was originally published in 2014 and was updated on December 29, 2020 to add a new photo to the header, fix broken links, and bring content in line with the current Lifehacker style.