Episode 24: Jealousy and Envy - Looks and sounds the same, but not the same

Letters to my kids: A suicide survivor's lessons and advice for life

Episode 24: Jealousy and Envy - Looks and sounds the same, but not the same

Music: “Just A Blip” by Andy G. Cohen From the Free Music Archive Released under a Creative Commons Attribution International License

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/24/jealousy-envy_n_5186248.html

Are you craving attention from a person whose focus is on someone else? Do you desire attributes that are possessed by another? When you experience jealousy or envy, you have measured your sense of your self against your image of another person and arrived at a conclusion that was motivated by the biological signal of the affect of shame.

"Never underestimate the power of jealousy and the power of envy to destroy; never underestimate that" - Oliver Stone

And so envy is a two-person situation whereas jealousy is a three-person situation. Envy is a reaction to lacking something.

Both jealousy and envy involve comparisons and contrasts. Comparison suggests similarity or equivalence, whereas contrast focuses on differences. At times you may compare yourself with another, but most often you will be focused upon contrasts based on negative feelings.

"Travel and tell no one. Live a true love story and tell no one. Live happily and tell no one. People ruin beautiful things" - Khalil Gibran

If you ask people to describe a situation in which they felt jealous, they are as likely to describe an experience of envy (e.g., "I wished I had my friend's good looks") as of jealousy (e.g., "my girlfriend danced with an attractive guy"). Naturally, this creates a sense that jealousy and envy are very similar—even though they are actually quite different.

The second problem is that envy and jealousy often travel together. This means that when you are feeling jealous, you are often feeling envious as well. And yet envy and jealousy are not the same emotions.

"You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars." - Gary Allan

One definition of the difference is that envy happens when you wish you had something that someone else has, while jealousy is fear that something you have is being taken away by someone else.

What happens if we welcome the envy and jealousy as just messengers from our emotional system? Messengers trying to bring something important to our attention.

And how does that feel inside? Always you can ask the same question, and feel, and see what answer comes. You’re just telling yourself the truth.

"Success is liking yourself, liking what you do and liking how you do it" - Maya Angelou

Jealousy seems to be heavily rooted in self-esteem.

Changing your perception of yourself can help lessen feelings of jealousy. This is the idea that there are many ways to define yourself — for instance, you can be a father, a professor and a soccer player, all at once — but you’re not always going to be working all of these aspects of yourself at one time.

Envy is an emotional pain, and oftentimes emotional pain translates into physical pain. It’s so painful to be inferior to someone else, that you can’t tolerate it. The goal of the envious person is to reduce the pain, and they will do everything that will help them reduce the pain

Envy and competitiveness seem to be linked. Competitiveness seems to be highly related to envy, though it’s still not known which causes the other. “It can be that competitive people are more successful because of their envy, which drives them to succeed, or it can be that because they’re envious, they are considered to be competitive,” Cohen-Charash says.

"A flower does not think of competing to the flower next to it. It just blooms." - Koshin Ogui