‘I’m Just a Jealous Guy’

If you have listened to the former Beatles singer/songwriter John Lennon’s song “Jealous Guy,” the title should look familiar to you. What I like about Lennon’s song is the identification and expression of his feeling throughout the song. I feel that many of us suffer from jealousy because we are not trying to identify the feeling. Now, I do not want to be a sort of spiritual guru who tells you how to feel, but I do wish to share my knowledge and experiences of jealousy and explain ways that can help us to deal with it.

Jealousy can arise when we see other people’s successes and happiness. As dictionary.com defines it, “resentment against a rival, a person enjoying success or advantage or against another’s success or advantage itself.” It may also arise when we have negative emotions such as disappointment and despair. Also, we sometimes feel jealous when we try to guard our loved ones. However, the question is how can we deal with jealousy when it actually comes and smashes our hearts?
I have a classic cliché type story that I hope many can easily relate to. After I came to the United States as an international student, I met loads of other international students who had relationships with a significant other in their home countries. They maintained long distance relationships with great efforts, but once I saw how one of my friends was terribly affected by jealousy. He locked himself in his room, and when asked about his worries, he gave no answers. Later on, I learned that his significant other has told him about this amazing other guy and he was ashamed to admit that he was jealous about this “unknown person.” As I witnessed he suffered more and more by not identifying the way he was feeling. Eventually he explained to me the way he was feeling, and he realized that he was jealous. I shared some of my personal experiences of being jealous with him, and in talking to him, I understood that when we identify and respect jealousy it would stop bothering and nagging us.

This little story may not explain a whole lot, but I’m sure there should be many occurrences like this happening in our own campus.

In order to deal with jealousy, I would like people to consider jealousy as any other feeling such as, happiness, hatred and disappointment. By saying this, I don’t mean that jealousy is such a noble feeling; in fact it is a terrible feeling. As I see, jealousy occurs because of the imperfect success-driven world that we are living and it is almost impossible to avoid it. What we have to do is not to run away from it, but sit and feel it or tell someone how we feel about it.

There can be people who may not feel jealous, who are spiritually high in their mindsets and free from suffering. I do envy their abilities and I will try my best to become one of them. But until then, I know that I will be just a jealousy guy.