Millennial's Monologue: Secret Dramas in Our Hearts & Souls

Question #1: Why do I feel jealous?

Question #1: Why do I feel jealous?  

Envy is a familiar demon with many names.  Shakespeare called it "the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on," B.C. Forbes called it "a mental cancer," Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller called it "the great exaggerator."  That unwholesome feeling of wanting to put down a hotter girl who's getting all the attention at a cocktail party.  That shameful feeling of secretly hoping your best friend won't make it into the Forbes magazine's "30 Under 30" list. Why the hell do I feel this way?  I want to shake myself up and talk some sense into me but the jealous reaction felt almost automatic.  By the time I start lecturing myself, well, it already happened.  I already felt that intense heat wave of jealousy crawling out of my heart.  And damnit, it left a bitter, unpleasant aftertaste. 

But one interesting observation I made in my own life is that envy usually springs from a place of hurt, sore spots,  and open wounds.   Maybe you have memories of feeling overlooked, unnoticed or un-special.  Maybe you had experiences of wanting certain things so badly but you couldn't get them.  The more these memories and experiences hurt you, the more you are likely to fall into victim of the green-eyed monster.  In many cases, an envious heart needs to be healed first—not just get blamed.  Every envious heart has a secret history, and it's worth taking a look at the historical past of your swollen, scarred heart.   

But at the same time, I often feel that envy is a necessary survival mechanism.  That damn thing, that green-eyed monster, shows up especially frequently when I don't fulfill obligations to myself.  When I don't put in the necessary time and effort to figure out my own future-that's when I'm most likely to be obsessing over someone else's success and feeling anxious.  When you don't give your full attention to becoming the best you can be, you will inevitably be more prone to envy.  Envy, in this sense, is a punishment from within.  Punishment from yourself for failing to commit to the important duty of discovering and fulfilling your unique destiny.  That's why I believe eradicating envy is not so much about correcting your relationship with others as it is about repairing your relationship with yourself. 

Think about any historical figure famous for his or her immunity from envy.  St. Paul comes to my mind, but I bet all the people you can think of had a pretty thorough understanding of who they were and what they were destined to do.  And they probably worked really hard their entire lives to achieve that vision.  In my view, laziness, irresponsibility, and envy almost always go together. 

P.S.: As for the jealous guys out there, I read somewhere that "a guy is only insecure about losing his girl when he knows someone else can treat her better."

----------------------------------

Suggestions For Further Reading

Keller, Timothy (2013-12-06). The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness. 10Publishing. Kindle Edition. Amazing book on over bloated ego and how to cure it.  

Bacon, Francis (1985-08-29). The Essays (Classics). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. In an essay entitled "Of envy," Bacon discusses different types of envy as well as the difference between private envy and public envy.

Warren, Rick (2012-10-23). The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? (p. 424). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. Chapter 41, entitled "Envy Trap," explains why envy is a global sin.  

2013 Ted Talk by Parul Sehgal, an editor for the New York Times Book Review, entitled "An Ode to envy":

http://www.ted.com/talks/parul_sehgal_an_ode_to_envy