i often times find myself being jealous of someone or something. mostly someone. in particular ONE someone. the thing is i know i shouldn't be jealous of this person. i have alot to offer, etc., etc., blah, blah, blah. but i still am. i mentally compare myself to this person frequently. but what is it that i am jealous of? success, beauty, charisma, athleticism? yes, all of the above. i know that some of my jealousy issues have to do with my own self-esteem. the difficult part is that i know i shouldn't be jealous, i know i should value who i am and what i have to offer. I DO. but i still am envious.
jealousy, however, can be productive. using that fuel to fire. whether it be in a workout or anything else in life. is it human nature to be jealous?
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How can you be jealous of "someone" when the only person that exists is you? There is no other to be jealous of. Your reality is the only reality that exists to you, pragmatically, and "everybody else" are nothing more than characters in YOUR life story. Interacting with "others" is actually interacting with an aspect of yourself. These interactions, when they result in something that disturbs you, such as jealousy, are indicating to you that there is a dissonance, or offset, between some aspect of your perception and understanding of reality, and how reality actually is. In other words, jealousy results from an ignorance...an ignorance in one's understanding of their self.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the ignorance that sustains the jealousy you experience has something to do with the value you place upon others, or specifically, the value you place upon the this single person that you possess jealousy of. Of course, overemphasizing the value of others in your reality can have something to do with underemphasizing your own value in your reality, in other words, your own self-esteem, as you indicate.
If you can transcribe jealousy into motivation, I think that is good. I would caution however to assure that the motivation is to better yourself and not to be better than someone else. The latter, obsessive competitiveness, I think is unhealthy and does not lead to happiness.
I don't think it is in human nature to be jealous obviously, as I iterate that is due to human ignorance.
To conclude, I will say that, if you are having issues with self-esteem, it is common to think that you need to love yourself more, however, I think that this exasperates the problem, and the actual solution is to love others more. If you minimize selfishness and maximize selflessness then nobody will be better than you and you can feel justifiably fantastic about yourself.
i agree with most of what you said. but doesn't your conclusion contradict your first position? that there is only "you" and yourself in some measures of all that is? how can you love others more if "others" do not exist?
ReplyDeletei, however, think jealousy is human nature. animal nature even. and i do attribute my jealousy to my lack of self-esteem, as stated. but we all have our opinions and i think our opinions are often skewed by where we are in life.
thanks for the comment. i enjoy the intellectual banter.
Well, I will clarify. Obviously, the "others" that I claim are illusionary are both illusionary in the case of jealousy and in the case of love. Yes, when you love "others" you are actually loving an aspect of yourself. I will proffer that jealousy is a result of an ignorance of the true paradigm of the self-reality but that selfless love is a result of a knowledge of the true paradigm of the self-reality.
ReplyDeleteJealousy is animal nature? Are you suggesting that animals such as dogs, birds, spiders, fish and ants experience jealousy?
In regards to your self-esteem, I'm curious as to how you feel it? Is there a particular aspect of yourself that you are not confident in or is it a general esteem deficit? You have a BA degree to prove you're smart, you've never had a hard time attracting men which shows that you are beautiful, most people like you which shows you are nice, you have a job that you like...how do establish a self-esteem issue?
"i think our opinions are often skewed by where we are in life" - definitely.