"A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not."-SENECA
Unfortunately, it is human nature to compare ourselves to others. Jealousy & Envy are toxic combinations of anger, insecurity, fear, worry, and greed.
Jealousy is feeling to desire what others have. While Envy is a feeling of resentment of other people's blessing and prosperity. Both of these are the opposite of love and gratitude and seek to see another person's misfortune.
These illnesses of mind are because of a person's inability to see what God has provided in their life and not be thankful for it. There are thousands of blessings you are blessed with if you put up a light on them and think about it. but our mind is designed for desiring more and more. which leads us to jealousy and envy against other people, which may lead to immoral behavior.
Why do people feel jealousy or envy? why we want more? why aren't we content? why do we seek happiness in what we don't have rather than being happy with what we have?? Are we desiring due to jealousy or for self-satisfaction? have you ever noticed how many times do we feel jealous or envy in a day ?? ask yourself.
CAUSES OF JEALOUSY & ENVY :
➣ Constant comparison with others
➣ Low self-esteem
➣ A desire for status and attention
➣ Lack of close friendship
➣ Lack of prayers & intimacy with God
➣ And finally the cause, causing all these are social media.
Jealousy and envy are a trap for your mind and fuels up anger, insecurity, fear, worry, stress, and greed, which leads to self-destruction through inability to focus and work, ignorance of blessings, leading towards immoral behavior and wrong path, and most importantly it takes away your inner peace.
SO HOW DO WE OVERCOME JEALOUSY AND ENVY?
HERE ARE THE SOLUTIONS:
WHEN WE FEAR AND RESIST CHANGE, WE BECOME INSECURE. INSECURITY CREATES JEALOUSY. fact that you may lose your best friend, fact that you may lose your old customer or job, fact that you may not be that famous. Fact that these things are common then why worry about it? we don't even know that these changes will have greatly positive or negative impact, so why worry and be jealous of it.
2 STOP COMPARING AND START LIVING:
Rather than focusing on the external world, if we focus on our internal world, we would improve ourselves to the next level. If we stop comparing ourselves to others and focus on our inner self-development we would be much happier.
For example: There was a man who always compared himself to everyone in every aspect of life such as clothes, job, salary, spouse, friends, house, mobile phone, car, etc. He wasn't happy at all with his life, always remained angry, dissatisfied, sad, and insecure even with so many blessings!! one day he went to a consultant to find his reason for unhappiness, anger, and dissatisfaction, and insecurity, and after the session, his view of life completely changed and he realized how blessed he was!! and after that, he was always grateful to god and lived with content and the change in his life was enormous!!
TO LIVE WITHOUT COMPARISON IS TO REMOVE TREMENDOUS BURDEN.
COMPARISION KILLS SELF LOVE AND SELF CONFIDENCE, BE YOU DON'T COMPARE & STAY HAPPY
If jealous/envious = you won't be happy
content with what you have = you won't feel jealousy or envy.
3.LESS IS MORE:
The more you are satisfied with what you have, the less you will desire!! and vise versa.
Desires are endless!! so how will jealousy & envy end?? by being content with what God has provided to us and being thankful to God we attract more blessings and happiness. If we continue to desire we will forget the blessings wee have and run after what we don't, which will lead to dissatisfaction and unhappiness, resulting in jealousy or envy or immoral behavior.
Hence we can see how less is more and more is less!!
4. WISH GOOD FOR PEOPLE AND CELEBRATE THEIR SUCCESS:
Wishing good for people and celebrating their success increases love for other people and kills jealousy or envy.
for example: if your friend gets what you desired for, if your colleague gets promotion, if your classmates score higher then you, if your friend gets a new car, or any such situation of life always with your heart wish them good and celebrate their success and spread love and joy to evryone.
5. PRACTICE BEING GRATEFUL:
Every night before going to sleep practice reflecting on your day and thank god for the blessings provided by god. this will help you overcome jealousy and envy and make you aware of being happy and satisfied instead of comparing with others. If you count the blessings of God on you, you won't ever feel need to be jealous or envious .
6. AVOID SOCIAL MEDIA:
Nowadays social media has become a medium of causing jealousy and envy. posts which people see of other's life leads them to compare their life with them and making them feel dissatisfied, desiring more and takes away your mental peace.
keeping away yourself from social media will make you more happy and more focused and more content.
jealousy and envy has disrupted our world and distracted people from the goodness of life and left them comparing and increased jealousy and envy leading to immoral behavior and selfishness, desiring more and more rather than being happy and helping.
