JEALOUSY IS A WASTED EMOTION

 We all get jealous. Don't we? Actually, no. Not everyone experiences jealousy as an emotion. 

I don't get jealous. That is a  weird thing to read, isn't it? Well, it is a weird thing to say, too. But it is true. I don't experience jealousy as an emotion. I experience sadness, happiness, anger, euphoria, and a plethora of emotions, but not jealousy.

Why? Because, unlike many emotions, I can choose to not experience jealousy.

After many years of observing people getting jealous in myriad ways ,I understand that our culture is riddled with jealousy, envy and greed, all of which are by-products of our competitive , consumer driven culture.

What worse is that it is far more pernicious than we think. Competition breeds jealousy, though we often give prettier labels " competitive spirit" or "stick-to-itiveness or ambition."

But the truth is that jealousy leads to cultural imperatives such as maintenance of social hierarchies, enforcement of monogamy or relationship reforms, encouragement of material or social parity etcc.

Jealousy can be reflected through various behaviors such as we get jealous over our relationships, we think our friends don't spend enough time with us etcc. It all revolves around us.  

There is good news though. Like our televisions, we can chose to turn it off. We can choose to remove jealousy from our emotional arsenal. And like TV, it’s not always easy to turn off (it sure seems interesting sometimes, doesn’t it?) But turning off jealousy can significantly improve one’s emotional health. Because, at the end of the day, jealousy is never useful. Many negative emotions can be useful—pain tells us something is wrong, fear tells us to look before we leap, etc.—but jealousy, no matter how jealous we get, will never help.

 But How?

 The easiest way to turn jealousy off is to stop questioning other people’s intentions. We often get jealous because we think a person meant one thing by their actions, when they meant something totally different. And the truth is that you’ll never know someone’s real intent, so it’s a waste of time to question it. If you’re struggling with questioning someone’s intent, you can do one of two things:

 1. Ask them what they meant by their actions/words. 

2. Accept that you will never know their true intent, no matter how much you question it. 

 The bottom line with jealousy: You can turn it off. You can stop questioning other people’s intent. A better life is waiting on the other side of jealousy.

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