BOZTEPE: Jealousy can be very harmful trait
Jealously is a term that is often associated with phrases such as low self-esteem, loneliness, feelings of emptiness, inadequacy, anxiety, stress and neuroticism. It is an emotion that we all experience throughout our lifetime, and can be caused by various things, such as issues in an intimate relationship or someone’s appearance, work ethic or house — the list is endless. Jealously directly correlates with lower self-esteem. Now the difficult question that we should ourselves would be, “How do we deal with jealously?” Unfortunately, the answer is not straightforward.
For starters, and rather most importantly, the majority of people are not aware they are jealous. We, as people, commonly have a built-in shame that exists within us, which causes us to be over critical about ourselves. We have all heard our friends say, “You’re being too hard on yourself." The over analysis we construe onto ourselves comes from us endlessly trying to keep up with how the modern persona should look, talk, learn, act and live. This is detrimental to one’s health as it often leads to a lot of negative self-talk. So, my first premise on how we can overcome jealously is to notice our inner thoughts and question them. To elaborate, we may not be able to change our height, but we do have control over our weight and body figures. We must learn to accept what we were given and fix the things we have control of if they make us feel insecure.
But, this might be difficult if somebody is experiencing competitive jealously. This is the type of jealousy where we are only happy and satisfied with life if we are experiencing a higher level of satisfaction of the competition around others. Now, this competitive nature can even be a good trait, if used properly. Competitive jealously occurs when we feel accomplished after doing better than others. We experience a healthy competitive nature when we feel like we have done better than we previously did. Competing with ourselves is healthy, as it leads to a more proactive and ambitious personality. But there is a problem when we are only competing to do better than others as opposed to bettering ourselves.
Now that we understand what causes us to experience jealously and the toll it takes on us, we explore ways to cope with and control it. First, we need to find the root of the issue: What causes us to become jealous? We need to take a few steps back from the situation and think objectively about what bothers us. It could be something that is caused by childhood trauma, something we have been judged for in the past or something that only we perceive as an issue. Regardless of where our jealousy stems from, we need to calm down. To do this, we need to take deep breaths, meditate, do yoga, draw, write or whatever else might de-stresses us. Once we calm down, we can then start to accept and acknowledge our jealously without acting out or doing something we would possibly regret.
That critical voice in our mind usually advises us to take actions that could potentially hurt us. This is because that inner voice is based off emotions, not logical comprehension. What we must do is seek our own sense of security, in order to reassure ourselves. We need to be able to love ourselves or at least strive to love ourselves more, because self-love and self-care will only strengthen our mental states. It will help us to have a closer connection to life, notice the bigger things, be more grateful and so much more. We need to embrace the qualities that we have, respect those around us and continue to compete to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be — we must do this for ourselves and not others.
Kaan Jon Boztepe is a School of Arts and Sciences junior double majoring in philosophy and history. His column, "Kaanotations," runs on alternate Wednesdays.
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