How to stop comparing with others? How to get rid of jealousy?

How to stop comparing with others? How to get rid of jealousy?

“Comparison (jealousy) is the thief of joy.” — Theodore Roosevelt

Who do you most frequently compare yourself to?

Do you feel sometimes that other people, who are less hardworking or smarter than you, have more than what you have?

Are your kids not able to perform as other kids?

Do you think other family members enjoy more than what you do?

Do you find that other parents are more favorable than yours?

If you are jealous about what others have and you don’t then you must read this article to learn how to enjoy what you have and not to be jealous about what others have !!!

The comparison (jealousy) game or war is as old as humanity.

I stop scrolling as much as possible via social media feeds. As part of the research, I read reports that indicate that time on social media accounts raises depression and jealousy and decreases well-being (I talk and write about well-being, resilience, burnout, and mental health). This motivates me to use social media deliberately, to select what I look at explicitly, and to keep it to a minimum.

But sometimes you get the ray of hope from the darkest corner of the room. I saw a confession page on Facebook. A girl confessed about the comparison (jealousy) which she practices every day on social media. This made me feel I’m not the only one. I thought I should work on myself & get rid of this “Thief” (jealousy).

Return to the quote from Roosevelt, the contrast is theft of happiness.
As well as raising consciousness about making an unintended (or advertising) contrast and taking other’s happiness. When I was working on myself I read several experiences and books.

First of all, I was thinking on what is the issue with jealousy (comparison) and I found the following:

1. Comparison is deteriorating our happiness: One thing which is common is – we all want enjoyment and happiness in life. Most of us are keeping ourselves busy in fulfilling our senses for a short duration either by eating food or traveling or buying something or watching tv etc. It’s good that we are enjoying through our senses fulfillment but now the issue is, the complete ecosystem we have built in such a way that the one who is enjoying more through senses is the better individual than other !!! From our childhood, we are getting compared with another individual on the basis of either the happiness from success in sports or in studies or the happiness from money or the happiness from good health or the happiness from the fun activities. The negative thought is if another person is able to fulfill their senses more, then he is a happier and better individual than us. The basic concept of all is the god which is all are equal and the supreme happiness is inside not outside is completely lost. It’s just not that we are seeking happiness from the outside world we are going one step further in categorizing human beings on the basis of happiness one gets from the outside world and that too negatively. Those who get more are better than those who get less what a pity on human society !!! The thought which is in all of ours head that if another person is having more material happiness then he is better than us is actually decreasing our happiness even further. Anyway, we have a happiness shortage and this negative thought is decreasing it !!! We have reached a stage that if we have more and others have less then we feel happy that wow we are better than others not because we are enjoying more with those things just because of thinking that we are better than others !!!  Happiness by thinking that we are better than others and sadness by thinking that we are not better than others is a mental disease that impacts our relationship, our happiness, and our success in life !!!
2. We celebrate our success alone: Because of this mentality If we achieve something then most of the time we end us celebrating alone thinking that other people will not feel good if we share with them and actually that is true. If they go ahead and share their success other people will feel lower because of the negative mindset given to them from birth that if another person has more material things then he is better !!! We all know that celebrating alone is not fun it and the joy of accomplishment diminished when no one celebrates with us !!! But this society has kept no option for us now!!!
3. People hate each other: One more point is that to achieve something materially we always get failure because for the same thing many people are working to get it!! so only a few are able to achieve and a maximum percentage of people fail to achieve. Now if someone else fails then he can definitely find others who have failed but if someone succeeds then he has very few people with him who have to succeed. This is also a reason why people are not able to connect with other people’s success either they think they were lucky or they must have done some mischief so ideally, they resent it!
4. Comparison becomes a reason for our failure: The thought of negativity and selfishness actually the reason why people don’t succeed in life and because of these reasons only they don’t want to celebrate other people’s success also. By being negative they compare themselves with others and because of selfishness they always find themselves wanting one or another thing. As a result, they are busy thinking about themselves and they don’t want to celebrate other people’s success and don’t want to help others. In return, they also don’t receive any help and that becomes a reason for their failure.
   

Very few of us are actually able to come out of this negative thought that if another person has achieved then he is better than me and the selfish thought of I must have all the material happiness and these are the people who celebrate when other people succeed. If you have people around yourself who celebrate when you succeed then I am sure they must be your lifelong friend and well-wishers. Nowadays even two brothers or sisters or even parents and kids are jealous of each other because of this negative thought!!

Now we all must take this negative thought out of our minds!!! I am suggesting 4 ways through which we can get rid of jealousy (comparison) and will start celebrating other people’s success. Here are some tips on how to stop comparing (jealousy) yourself with others:

1. Be mindful of the causes and stop them– Start to note the circumstances you are playing the game of comparison. As I said,
   for most of us Social Media is a major one. Is there someone who praises this or that endlessly or asks you questions about your life that make you feel lower? Do you ever feel dissatisfied with your life? Are there things like walking through a high-end shopping mall or going through a costly area?
   List who you admire and what you sometimes admire or compare to. Write down how anyone impacts you negatively and why your time is always wasted. Resolve next time to catch you. If you can, avoid comparisons, particularly if the behavior or interaction does not add importance to your life or add any real value. Making a list must be the first step as this would specify our problem. From here on we will be ready to work on the thoughts which are giving us jealousy feeling.
2. Mind that people who look happy from outside (mainly because of material possession) might not be happy at all: Our main focus of life is to be happy. Everyone is just seeking one thing which is happiness. Now it’s not that one who has more material things he is happier!!! If that would have been true then we must be a more happy individual than people living in the 18th century because we have more material things than them for sure but that is not the case !!! It is not true that people staying in cities are happier than people in villages because they have more means actually we have more people in villages who are happy than people in cities !!! If someone is tensed and doing something unenthusiastically just to achieve some material thing then he is not happy most of the time. How can he be better than another individual who is just doing everything for fun and in that the other individual might achieve less but finally with any achievement in life we want happiness !!! So you see life is not a competition where one will only be happy if he wins the competition, life is a journey which has to be good every moment of it!!! To enjoy every moment of this journey one must be positive and selfless and not being negative and selfish in which he thinks that only if I achieve something then I will get happiness !!! People who are positive and selfless are the ones who are more successful and happy. We must measure other not how many material things they are able to achieve but how positive and selfless they are able to keep themselves. This is real growth on this journey. Don’t feel bad if someone has good looks, more money, good looking wife, good kids, etc just keep yourself positive and selfless that is more important than any of these because that would keep you happy, and being happy is most important.
3. Thank you for your life’s good and stop all lies that claim “It
   isn’t appropriate”- You would be far less open to competition and jealousy if you commit to being genuinely thankful for what is good in your life and note it every day. When someone or something causes this awful feeling of unfair contrast, stop right now and consider what’s positive in your life. Whenever you get a thought that you are not good at something either it is self-induced or said by someone else we can start thinking about what we are good at. Each person is different and has their own specialized area.
4. Celebrate other people’s achievements: Once you are working on making a positive thought in your mind then second thing is to make it stronger by actually celebrating enthusiastically if someone achieves success. This will help us to feel the enjoyment of having positive and selfless thoughts and we would want to do this celebration again and again. If your friend has got better marks then we must celebrate his achievement. As we know that most important thing is to be happy and whatever marks you got are as per your preparation. We can only work hard what marks we get is not in our control. So enjoy the moment and celebrate with your friend as he was able to get it right. If possible ask him to help you to get good marks. This shows a great character which gives happiness and growth. If you celebrate with him it means that you have positive and selfless thoughts. Even if others will come and tell you that he got better marks then you will not be sad because you have built that positive and selfless thought for yourself.
5. Praise other as often as we can: We must always be saying good things about whatever person achieves around us. Let say your friend is able to reduce his weight by 3 kg then we must praise him or let say your wife cooked good food then we must praise her this will encourage them to do even better next time. These small activities will help us to take us out of jealousy. We praise others only if we are positive and selfless. We must praise others for whatever positive change we see in them even if they are not very positive about the change or if others around them are not able to notice the change because this celebration helps them to work even hard and especially to people who are closest to us like our spouse, kids and parents we must celebrate most often. Dan Reiland says: a genuine friend encourages and challenges us to live out our best thought, honor our purest motives, and achieve our most significant dreams,  that’s what we need to do with the important people in our lives. By praising we make our positive and selfless thought strong. If someone else will come and say that he did well and you are not doing great then you won’t get negative.
6. Remember everyone is made in the image of God: We all know that we all are images of God. The outside structure is different but inside we all are god. So first of all the one who is comparing is not able to see god in everyone and the problem is in him not us. Another point is everyone here is working on what is demanded from them by god so comparing one from another in any way does not make sense. Many a time if our close one compares ourselves to others then we get thought that they don’t love us and that is why they are telling someone else is good. The first thing is those who are saying that another person is better and you are not, they don’t know that everyone has god and problem is with them. They don’t know that God wants different things from different people. You can say this to them and that will make them realize their mistake. If you don’t want to answer them then either think that they are not knowledgeable and god must give them wisdom or you can take it as your test which god is taking, we must not become negative by what they are saying.

By following these steps you will definitely get rid of the “Jealousy (comparison)”. The rest of the things depend upon your willpower, how desperately you want to improve yourself.

To develop a good attitude in yourself you can read one famous book by John Maxwell “winning with people” you can buy that book at Winning with people

Another blog which you can read: https://sudarshanpurohit.com/overcoming-fear-of-failure/

I have a YouTube Channel also and you can subscribe to it through: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYGdbB_F0qii4Zo_rn-rCyg/videos?view_as=subscriber. We can discuss in detail how to get rid of jealousy.

You can visit my Facebook page where you can find all my videos and I update it regularly: https://www.facebook.com/pg/betterworldsjp/videos/?ref=page_internal. We can discuss in detail how to get rid of jealousy.

You can connect me through my professional network on LinkedIn also here is the link:https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjpurohit/. We can discuss in detail how to get rid of jealousy.

You can connect me through my Instagram page : https://www.instagram.com/purohit.sudarshan/. We can discuss in detail how to get rid of jealousy.