On Jealousy, Facebook and Not Flaunting what You’ve Got

This past week I’ve been discussing the destructive character trait of jealousy with my students. Is there any emotion that reeks more havoc in our relationships than jealousy? Does any emotion threaten our well being more than the green-eyed monster? In our own modern lives, can we not relate to the character, Portia, in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice: “How all the other passions fleet to air, as doubtful thoughts and rash embraced despair and shuddering fear and green-eyed jealousy!”

Do we understand what jealousy is?

One of the most compelling qualities of jealousy is that it’s often not the thing itself that we desire so much. It’s that someone else has it, and we don’t. In jealousy-speak, your gain is my loss. Call it pettiness. Call it insecurity. Whatever you call it, it’s draining and hurtful to be constantly looking over your shoulder and feeling desire for what you perceive to be someone else’s level of success and feeling the pain of lack in your own life. When I perceive you as having something that I don’t, it immediately engenders in me a feeling of inadequacy. What’s wrong with me that I don’t possess this? That feeling of inadequacy gets expressed in two ways. One way is inward (“I could never have what this guy has. I just don’t have what it takes”). The other is outward (“That guy is such an arrogant jerk. Just listen to him name drop!) Whether we bring our jealousy inward in the form of a low self concept, or outward in the form of judging others and declaring them unworthy, the bottom line is this powerful negative impulse skews our perspective and in the end, hurts no one but ourselves. And it keeps us from feeling joy for others’ success and even creates within us a vague feeling of pleasure in others’ misfortune. This is a painful way to live.

Jealousy can range from the obvious: someone else’s home, car, physical beauty, or financial standing, to the more subtle: other people’s children, a quality we perceive in someone else’s marriage, a perception of another’s success. It can be even more sublime: an intangible quality of a magnetic personality or a fabulous sense of humor. But the common denominator is we are always left with the painful feeling that we just don’t measure up. And that feeling hurts.

Let’s also stand apart from the culture we live in and observe some of the emotional fallout that we experience rampantly in our times. We live in a Facebook culture, where one person chooses to divulge only the most flattering glimpse of their lives and display it for public consumption. That leaves us, sneeking an unrealistic peek at someone else’s marriage, home life or vacation and automatically processing it inwardly to our detriment. “I don’t have that! What’s wrong with me?” I’ll never forget a story a friend of mine told me. She was looking at her friend’s Facebook page, agonizing over what she perceived as the incredible fun everyone seemed to be having. She never felt calm and secure enough to have fun like that! What was wrong with her that she never had social experiences like the people whose pictures she was staring at longingly? Then she looked closer. Wait a minute! She was actually in one of those pictures! She was at that party! And she remembered clearly how miserable she had been that night.

We cannot know what goes on in another person’s world. When we envy what another person has, we’re artificially focusing on one element of their lives and not considering the full picture. Yes, she may be a physically beautiful women, but she may also struggle in her marriage. One person may seem to have it easy financially, but feel incredible frustration with his children. While this truth shouldn’t necessarily console us, and we shouldn’t rejoice at someone else’s suffering, we should always remember that when we fixate our focus on one thing a person has, we skew our perspective and forget that a person possesses a whole pekelach (there is no English translation for this word) called “their lives”. Hyper focusing on one quality (their children, their money, their seemingly easy marital relationship) is skewed and unrealistically incomplete. We cannot know the full picture that makes up another person’s life.

And let’s remember that the Jewish approach is, in essence, the antithesis of Facebook (sorry Mr. Zuckerburg). And that is, if you’ve got it, please don’t flaunt it. Try to be the kind of person who doesn’t create jealousy in other people. Don’t create constriction or fester inadequacy in another person through your words or actions. If your friend is struggling to have a second child, don’t complain about how overwhelmed you are with your four kids. If your cousin is struggling financially, don’t offer all the details about your latest trip to the Carribean. Always be mindful of what you are creating in the inner world of another person.

When the wicked prophet Bilaam was commissioned to curse the Jews, he stood at the top of a mountain to deliver his curse. But he was tongue tied. He simply couldn’t curse the Jewish people and instead involuntarily praised them. What was it that he saw? He witnessed that their tents were all aligned facing opposite each other, so no one could see what went on in the tent of their neighbor. This was of course for the sake of modesty, but it was also based on the desire of the Jewish people to not create longing in another person based on what they possessed. That’s a quality we would do well to emulate.

One of the most ennobling requests Judaism makes of us is that we become more aware of what we feel, and instead of suffering with our feelings, start to think constructively about what our feeling are telling us. Are we jealous? What is it we’re jealous of? When I work with my clients and I hear a lot of negative self talk or judgment toward another person, I will often ask them, “What is it they have that you want?” This isn’t an easy question and the answer usually takes a while to come out. But ultimately, we get to the heart of what the person longs for. And then the life coaching begins. How can I set out to achieve what it is that I want? If I long for another person’s marriage, what can I do within my own, to create the kind of pleasure and intimacy that I see? If I desire another person’s success, what goals can I set in my own life to get what I want? Jealousy, like any other emotion, is there to tell us what we need to do next. Identify the feeling, acknowledge that you’re feeling jealous, and then start constructively crafting for yourself some authentic goals for realistically getting what you want. When you think this way, you start to flip the painful feeling of jealousy into the fulfillment of your own personal potential. This ability is within all of us, and it’s a wonderful way to live.