Being jealous is so easy in our society, right? Comparison-itus is a real thing that many people suffer from, and social media tends to be one of the main culprits.
Aside from social media, we’re a society that’s driven by and dependent on competition. There are countless reality TV competition shows, magazines and even books dedicated to tearing other people down to make ourselves feel better. The list, sadly, goes on and on.
It almost seems like we’re constantly pitted against each other for no reason other than to try to put others down? Whaaaaaat?!
Let’s ground this concept a little bit more.
If someone else gets a job you want or travels somewhere you want to go or gets engaged or married or something else that you want but don’t have. getting jealous of them is easy. It’s easy to complain about how unfair life is to you, how nice life is to other people. how you clearly can’t do anything right because nothing ever works out for you, blah blah blah…
It’s so, so easy. But we still shouldn’t do it.
I know how freaking hard it is to be happy for others who have something you want. Sometimes it takes everything within us to not go into a blind rage and silently curse them and make ourselves the victim, even if the situation really has nothing to do with us.
The mindset shift from being jealous to joyous for others is a tough one, but it serves us and others so much more than being stuck and stagnant in negativity.
I’ve been unemployed from a full-time job for almost six months now. I’ve applied for I don’t even know how many jobs, and I haven’t gotten any of them. For a while, every single job rejection email or phone call hurt, and I took them each so personally.
I used to think, “What is wrong with me? Why won’t anyone hire me? What do everybody else in this town looking for jobs have that I don’t? Why do I keep getting let go? What the hell is wrong with me?!”
But then I realized something. I’m one of many, many people looking for a job in my area right now.
I’m not special, as far as that goes. My skills and personality traits and interests set me apart from others, but in the end all of us are just trying to find our next job or career.
And I realized you never know what a company or HR person is looking for in their next candidate. You never know who else is applying. You never know who might need that money more than you do. There’s so much you might never know. And you shouldn’t need to.
We all need to get better at letting go of a lot of things, but especially being jealous of others. What good does it do for us or them to harbor resentment and jealousy over not getting something that they have? Honestly?
Think of all the times you’ve been jealous of other people. What positive outcomes were there, if any? Besides temporarily feeling justified for X, Y and Z reasons, really think about this.
You deserve more than constantly being jealous of other people. You deserve to be happy with what you have in life, even if it’s not exactly what you wanted.
I’ve learned that it’s important to be grateful and happy about the things in your life that are going well before asking for the next big great thing. How can you appreciate a new opportunity before you fully appreciate what you already have?
It’s time for us to stop being jealous when others get something you want. Just because someone else has something you want doesn’t mean that you can’t have it, too.
And that’s another thing we need to get over: being stuck on specific outcomes. Sure, someone else may get a position you want or a house you want, but you have to believe that something else that may be an even better fit is out there waiting for you.
You might be too focused on being jealous that someone else got a job you wanted that you don’t see another opportunity that could be perfect for you. I know I’ve missed some opportunities by doing this, and I don’t want that to be the case for you.
Let go of being jealous and see what happens in your life. It’s hard to overcome, that’s for sure, but as with most things, it gets easier the more you do it.
Photo by Artem Beliaikin on Unsplash
