Pangs of jealousy. I’m sure that that feeling is not alien to you. I’m sure that all of us have felt it, will feel it, and some of us are even dealing with it right now. It could be a book that you wanted to own and it so happens that your classmate has it. Or it could be the scholarship that you wanted to avail of so much but your goody-two shoes of a friend snapped it up first. Why is it always her? You can’t see why she has everything whereas you have nothing, you reason out. You feel like you’re just her sidekick and you want to have everything she has right now. But of course, you can’t. You’re tired of being second-best.
But that’s okay. In fact, it’s completely understandable. As girls, we get to experience these jealousy pangs more often than boys do. Yup, it’s an unfortunate fact. But before you hunt me down and beat me up for saying that, let me explain why.
No doubt, jealousy is the most destructive feeling I know. It eats you up from the inside and kills you softly. Maybe it’s because us girls tend to be too hard on ourselves. We always want the best. And guess what? IT’s already in our system.As girls, “perfection seems to be our main goal. As kids, we are bombarded by perfect Barbie dolls and beautiful princesses in fairy tales. We consume them and wish we were like them. Then we grow up and meet different kinds of people who are better than us at almost everything. The bubble that we have nurtured as little girls who believe in fairytales which, by the way, does not deal with two-timing prince charmings and girls who are better than the princess. That’s when our frustration comes in because our happy ending is not an easy road after all.
But if we look at the bright side of jealousy (yes, even something as evil as jealousy has a positive outcome),what do you think got us into where we are today? How did we improve? It’s because of, yup, you got that right, jealousy. Jealousy may be a nasty emotion but it developed out of real need.
According to Peter Salovey, Ph.D., a psychologist at Yale University: “Feeling jealous now and then, at manageable levels of intensity, is normal. To feel envious of someone means you’re plugged into life.”
But then again, there are people who allow themselves to be consumed by their jealousy that it turns into something petty.
We can’t make jealousy go away, especially in this world of artificial beauty where everything is enhanced. But the best thing you can do is to acknowledge your strengths but never put the other person down. That will only make you even more frustrated and it won’t do you any good.
