An unbeatable trait that makes us all it’s slaves is jealousy. It is like a balloon. Some people know that it is better to let go the thread as it feels nice to see the balloon rise higher and higher and finally the naked eyes conceive the mysterious disappearance of the balloon amidst the field of clouds. While some people don’t wish to let go the thread and it’s impact grows so huge that the balloon bursts one day. You can clearly imagine what happens if you permit your heart to carry the burden of jealousy for a long period of time. It gradually transforms into a disease that can only create more and more number of ill-feelings within you about a particular person. This ill-feeling blossoms into a powerful hatred and peace enters only when the person whom you “hate” undergoes failure or a tremendous loss. How happy you feel, don’t you? I am sure most of us have gone through this phase but it’s better not to let this feeling breed in for a longer time because an action similar to the one taken by you would come rolling over you one day.
To tackle someone else’s jealousy is yet another challenge. It is a very common experience that when someone feels jealous about you, he/she would try to put you down in some or the other way. They try to taunt you or mock you and it does prick our ego badly. Many a times people utter something bad on your face or they do it behind your back, trying to create a false friendly approach in front of you. That irritates the most, especially when it turns out to be one of our best friends. They say something nasty and we dedicatedly follow the principle of ‘tit for tat!’ Who wins? No one. But who loses? Both.
Humans possess a remarkable tendency to forget the best and remember the worst. If someone behaves rudely or recites worthless rumours behind our back, we treasure those words safely in our minds and try to retaliate by memorising the best nasty words that could lower the person in his own eyes. We feel a great sense of satisfaction after being successful in our mission. “Serves him/her right!” we say in our minds, with a smirk on our faces! The same thing happens when someone becomes mad at you out of jealousy.
I wish to explain a “beautiful" and a “remarkable" incident that made me look deeper into this unpredictable human feeling. I was in 11th grade and marks of sociology were out. Surprisingly I was the highest in my class. One of my friends asked me about my marks and her reaction was surprisingly hilarious. I remember her face moulding into an angry expression and her irritated voice sung a melody of all nasty words in quick succession, because of which I couldn't decipher most of the words but I was fortunate enough to hear her last word: ass-hole. I was called an ass-hole by my friend for being first in sociology!! This is known as the height of jealousy. My reaction? I was so speechless that I just turned my back on her and ignored her. I am not bluffing.
You must be wondering that why didn’t I follow the ‘tit for tat’ principle. It’s not that I was scared to reply her back. But I didn’t wish to sail in the same boat with her. Situation changes a person’s behaviour for time being and the words communicated becomes personal. Whenever we get angry or disappointed, we always tend to become personal and that is the time when we hurt a person verbally as you read in my case. Rather than retaliating in an angry tone, we must be calm and must explain to our hearts that the person is not angry at us. He/she is just angry at the situation or the action. But this is the area where we lack understanding. This is the time where we make situations worse with anger as a weapon.
In the long journey of life we are definitely going to meet jealous and arrogant people. There will be times when you would be rude to someone but the ideal principle is: handle the situation with calmness and clear mind. You should definitely speak up if you want to defend yourself but don’t become too judgemental or personal. That would raise up the level of bitterness and would make you more upset in future. I still speak to my friend who called me an ass-hole. I forgave her and I felt that she has become more to friendly to me after the “incident.” We try to seek pleasure by trying to hurt those who have hurt us. But that would definitely be temporary and peace would be inaccessible in the long run. So just let it go!
