Why Jealousy is Good for You and How to use it for growth?
All of us get jealous and yet we are told we shouldn’t be jealous. It’s a natural tendency to be envious and it happens more in today’s time specially in a world where everyone is throwing their success on your face. But jealousy can be good for you.
Jealousy is just a Fuel
So when I saw the trailer of this new upcoming movie Gehriayan and I saw this actor Sidhant Chaturvedi in the lead paired opposite Deepika Padukone and Ananya Pandey, I became super jealous.
Yes, I didn’t become just jealous, I became super jealous. I felt intensely jealous when I saw this relatively new actor getting a leading role in a movie in one of the biggest production houses of India, Dharma productions. Now whether the film does good on the box office is a separate thing but getting a movie of such sort and that too being paired opposite one of the biggest superstar actresses like Deepika Padukone is a victory in itself. I felt jealous because I wanted something similar to that. I’m an actor and for the last few years, I have been trying hard to get into movies. And without much luck. I have had some success getting small roles and I also have played a leading character in the movies. But I have not had the kind of success that is popularly called success. Here I was an actor that dreamed of getting work in big Bollywood films and becoming a superstar and then I see this person out of nowhere bagging roles like that. And I felt I was nowhere close to being there as those people sitting in the high places didn’t even know my name. And it wasn’t easy accepting this reality. Now there are a variety of reasons for that and lack of talent and hard work is not one of them. Life has not been easy and there was some dearth of luck in my case. I could also say that there was also a lack of awareness and that could be attributed to other things. And all this further fueled my jealousy.
Now I’m not somebody to just sit back and do nothing(and hence this article). And thankfully so I’m also not the jealous types the one who is like Duryodhana, the negative character from the epic Mahabharat but my jealousy works like that of Karan, the anti-hero of the epic tale.
Types of Jealousy / Envy
There are two types of jealousy. Both of them come from a place of lacking something but they are distinguishable by the thoughts that they lead a person to think and act upon.
There is the envy that can lead to self destruction where a person gets consumed by the thought why does somebody else have it when he or she doesn’t have it.
There is the second type of envy which leads to growth and greatness. the envy where a person is consumed by the thought that if someone else has it then they should have it too. Such a person, or organization will strive hard and go beyond their limits to achieve the unachievable.
A Case Study Example
The Mahabharata teaches many things about the way of life and there is one thing that it really teaches very well is that nothing is absolutely negative and nothing is absolutely positive. It’s only the actions that can be defined as righteous and unrighteous. And the division between the two is rather subtle. The same is the case with jealousy or envy. Envy takes root in many people but it is what they do with it, is what really matters.
The Mahabharat is about the tale of the Kuru clan and the fight between two groups of cousins Kaurav’s and the Pandavas. Duryodhan is the eldest of the Kaurava and Yudhishtar is the eldest of the Pandavas. So when the kingdom is divided between the two cousins, Duryodhan develops a natural envy on finding that the eldest Pandu son, Yudhistra is running a well-oiled machinery. While Duryodhan has all the luxuries of life and all the think tank at his disposal, he loses his focus on running his kingdom and is only consumed by envy. The afterthought he has is — Why does Yudhistra have it? This all-consuming thought leads him on a path of conflict and self-destruction.
Karan is an excellent archer and arguably one of the most skilled warriors in the world, but he doesn’t get the accolades that Arjuna gets. Karan was raised in a charioteer’s family and according to the custom of those times, he doesn’t get a right to showcase his skills in the tournaments which are reserved only for the warrior class. So while Arjun one of the Pandavas brothers gets all the glory and is acclaimed to be the finest archer in the world and not without merit, Karan does not even get a chance to showcase his skills. In his life, Karan goes through a series of events where he is denied even the right to prove his merit that fills him with envy and resentment. He loses the chance to marry princesses or to win any glory and is denied all the privileges of the ruling class which he rightly deserves so. He too is struck by jealousy. He is jealous of Arjun but the jealousy takes root differently in his life.
Because he does what nobody else thinks to do. Karan works even harder to become even better at archery and he does become that. He strives to get all the weapons in his inventory that a warrior can aspire to, even the dreaded Pashupathinath. Karan earns his kingship through his sheer will and hard-work. And he does get recognized as one of the greatest warriors.
So as I stood jealous watching the trailers of the film. I knew that the only thing I can do is strive harder and work harder and create opportunities for myself. This jealousy doesn’t let me sit, it only makes me see the possiblities that are out there. If somebody else can achieve it then so can I. If somebody else can get a lead role in a movie then so can I. And this is the thought that further fuels my hunger for success.
