Why jealousy is counter-productive
Written for Quora: Why don’t good looking and popular people ever suffer in life? Their life seems to be perfect and it doesn’t seem fair how they have it easy, while others struggle.
You may see all these “perfect” people on Instagram.
Good looks, fancy clothes, amazing sceneries on the background. Have you ever felts a spike of jealousy inside your heart?
I want to discuss the mindset towards someone’s success. There are 3 pieces of it that are of my particular interest.
Shall we?
Jealousy conundrum.
Jealousy is counterproductive. There are people who judge others for their money and success. But at the same time isn’t it the thing that they are so hungry for?
Rejection is the first initial reaction of a our monkey brains.
Example.
A guy buys a new shiny car and puts a picture on Instagram.
The initial Rejection internally screams: “Oh! He is such a show-off. He thinks that he is better than others. He thinks that he looks so cool in his Lambo. Who are you without your fancy car and money?”
You scroll down your Instagram feed and see another shirt-less guy on taking a picture of his perfect body and a beautiful woman beside him.
The Rejection: “Oh! Look at him. He thinks that he is so hot. He is only focused on his physical shell. Maybe he is dumb af. He doesn’t focus on his intelligence and spiritual life like I do. And look at that Barbie next to him. I bet she is a dummy too.
He lost his soul in these meaningless shallow hookups with hot girls. He will never understand the depth of the real human connection.”
Many people condemn others for being charismatic, beautiful and rich with an internal desire to be like those successful people. If you accidentally recognized yourself in these lines I want to ask you:
How can you desire success and despise it at the same time?
When I found that this is absolutely absurd I taught myself to appreciate the success of others.
If I see a guy that is ripped I see behind his body, I see the amount of work and self-discipline he was willing to put to achieve this physique. Being in the gym almost every day myself, I know how much pain he needed to overcome in order to look like this and that is why I admire his willpower.
If I see a guy who is rich, I know that similarly to the guy from the gym, the rich guy “lifted heavy”. He was grinding twice as hard for the same things many people wish to have in life but don’t want to work their asses off. He was working when others were sleeping, he was studying when others chose to procrastinate, he was creating content when others were consuming it, and that is why he succeeded.
If I see a beautiful woman. I take a moment of appreciation of her beauty. But I understand that there are some challenges associated with it. All her life she has to live in some strange reality where people just give her things for the way she looks. Many people will not be nice to her and will have hard time relating to her problems simply because of the jealousy and many will not take her seriously thinking that she is a shallow bimbo without the slightest traces of intellect.
I also understand that it doesn’t matter how beautiful a woman is on the picture because I know that in reality she still poops, she has periods, her mouth smells in the morning and she looks ugly when she cries drunk for a stupid reason messing up her mascara all over her face. She will become old one day and her beauty will fade away. Sorry, ladies😅 Real beauty is in the soul and the mind.
The other side of the medal
When I was a kid my Mom used to watch that old Mexican TV series called “Los ricos también lloran” which literally means “The rich also cry”.
Rich do cry. Maybe they don’t get disappointed with the same things as the people with average income but the universal problems are the same for everyone. It doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, good looking or not:
- you will die
- you have a risk of terminal diseases
- you lose people you love throughout your life
No amount of money, good looks, and external signs of success can decrease the suffering that comes from these things.
I recently rewatched a Kazakhstan movie called “Racketeer”. It’s not a masterpiece of cinematography at all but I like it. I am a bit patriotic. I love my city.
In one of the last scenes, the main hero Sayan finds and punishes the traitor Zhan — a rich and influential man who used to be a friend in the past but betrayed the gang. He puts the gun in Zhan’s mouth breaking his teeth. The betrayer could feel the tastes of sweat, tears, saliva, blood and a cold metal pointed to his throat mixing in his mouth.
I can imagine this was the taste of death. The taste of final truth. A rather simple truth apparently:
Nothing matters.
None of his cars, no money, no house, no bank or factory that he owned, none of the respect, influence or success were important at the moment he faced death. He was about to lose his life and he wasn’t ready.
The Death is the ultimate equalizer. We all will be milled into the space dust between the grindstones of time.
Memento mori.
Refocus
I don’t use Instagram. I used to use it a lot but I learned soon that it doesn’t contribute any value to my life.
Moreover, indeed after I have been observing myself long-enough I understood that constant observation of the pictures of “perfect” people just builds up the frustration.
So why do I need a thing in my life that steals my time, doesn’t add up value and makes me frustrated.
I refocused myself.
I seek for people who know that they are flawed but learned how to embrace it. I love people who are humble and down to earth and understand that they are not important. I respect healthy perfectionists that realize that perfectionism is not perfect.
Life is too short to spend your precious time on destructive emotions such as jealousy.
Shall we just go and do our best with what we have, where we are? We can be grateful for the looks that nature gave us and push it to the limit with our efforts in gym and creativity in style. We can read books, study and develop our depth to find the source of such charisma and magnetism that will never be attainable by any physical beauty. We can transform the space around us to project our inner light so that others could behold and absorb our soul from our craft.
There is so much more to us that we don’t allow ourselves to explore.
Let’s be daring and brave.
Shall we?
