I am jealous!! Stay away!!

Someone once told me that if you dont like someone, its because you might be jealous of them. I poohed poohed the idea.

Until...................................

I heard things that people were saying about me, through close friends. And those things did not make sense! One might say against my defense that I was only trying to brush away my behavior that ticked the other person off or made them not like me.

So then.............................

I started the painful process of examining my feelings and the underlying hidden reasons for why I "hated" certain people. And yes, true enough...of all the people that I hated, they had something in their life that I was jealous about. But that got me wondering, is jealousy the only cause of hate? So then I got thinking about the people that I "disliked" (not as bad as hate huh!!). And there...I disliked something that they had, a trait I could not stand, a behavior that was annoying, or a habit that was standoffish..but I did not hate them!! And most importantly, I felt sorry for them more than anything else!!

I so sincerely wish that I could give you some real life instances but I am a bit cowardly in this matter. I have no problems in telling you who I hate. But by no means do I want those people to know that I envy them! Ironic..I am being vulnerable and honest but only to a certain point.

But hey, I can give you some filmi examples to make it more dramatic for you (no pun intended). I hate Shahrukh Khan, from the bottom of my heart. In fact, I often feel homicidal towards him to the extent that I dont even attempt to watch his movies anymore in fear that I might break my TV set. I actually feel like kicking myself right now for even including him in my precious blog. But I think this is important to get my point across. And as much as I hate to admit it, I think there is some jealousy that I experience with regards to this man. SRK has received accolades and recognition for his work way beyond what he deserves. Aamir Khan on the other hand, is a master at what he does and still does not get that. I love Aamir Khan and therefore, am jealous of SRK, and therefore, I hate him! Makes sense?

One last point that I would like to make here is that in my mind, jealousy and envy are two ends of the same continuum. I think that though both have their own negative connotations, envy can be healthy, especially in a competitive world where the fittest survives. If you are envious of someone's achievements, you might be able to motivate yourself to work harder. Jealousy on the other hand can be fairly unhealthy, anger provoking, negative, and debilitating. Thankfully, there are not too many people who I am jealous of. But I am most definitely working on getting rid of this negativity in me. Phew!! I actually need to cool off a bit because I just talked about SRK and that has my limbic system overworked. But till then, give this a thought!

Thanks, and let's not get too jealous if we can help it!