Why do people feel guilty when 'jealous'?

Jealousy is one of the most common emotions...All of us must have felt jealous at some point or the other😳....One of my mates has a rather interesting perception of jealousy...He says,a person is jealous if he/she can acknowledge any of the following emotions which would be brimming inside him/her

1)Anger towards the person whom one is jealous of....One simply get very annoyed with the person and dislikes everything about him/her!

2)Scepticism or Disbelief.....One tends to disagree that the person has achieved something...For instance,let's say one hears through the grapevine that his/her classmate found a top-flight job and takes home a fat pay-cheque....The immediate reaction would be to exclaim "But of course,it's all one big whopper ..It's just a part of his oveactive imagination and wishful thinking"

3)Condescension....Thoughts such as "There's nothing so great about what he has achieved,there are loads who have achieved more,so there's no need for all the hype and hoo-ha surrounding him" inundate one's mind.....

I was a bit astounded and disconcerted after hearing this,because I've felt the SAME so many times😆,albeit then I couldn't attribute my experiencing bouts of unneeded anger or my disparaging someone's achievement to jealousy....Felt really awful and all for feeling jealous,because I used to believe that "jealousy is bad,it's wrong"....

My friend said that jealousy is one of the most commonly observed emotions,it is a tremendously indisciplined emotion which manifests itself in the form of anger,scepticism etc in the first possible instance...More often than not,people do not even realise that jealousy is gripping its tentacles around them,making them behave in a manner that is unusual and different from their usual self....He says there is nothing to feel guilty about being jealous because it is inadvertent and unintentional.....

Nobody "CHOOSES" to feel jealous,so people do not have to be apologetic...It's alright to be jealous,but what IS wrong and unacceptable is working on this jealousy further,allowing the jealousy to foster ill-will towards another person,or wishing them bad or messing up their life by doing something nasty......Jealousy cannot be abolished completely,but it can certainly be restrained and controlled,so that it doesn't steer it's own course.....

Anyone agreeing with me??😃...Has anyone here experienced anger or disbelief but couldn't recognise these two feelings for being symptomatic of jealousy??

Originally posted by: joie de vivre

Nobody "CHOOSES" to feel jealous,so people do not have to be apologetic...It's alright to be jealous,but what IS wrong and unacceptable is working on this jealousy further,allowing the jealousy to foster ill-will towards another person,or wishing them bad or messing up their life by doing something nasty......Jealousy cannot be abolished completely,but it can certainly be restrained and controlled,so that it doesn't steer it's own course.....

Anyone agreeing with me??😃...Has anyone here experienced anger or disbelief but couldn't recognise these two feelings for being symptomatic of jealousy??

Hmmm - I will have to watch out for the symptoms next time. I usually get angry when there's incompetency. If a job is well-done, I don't care who did it, or did it better than I could do it. Disbelief too has been based on past experience ie the concerned person had never achieved anything worth mentioning and then went on to take it all, but once I get over the initial shocked reaction 😃, I don't find it difficult to acknowledge the achievement.

I think jealousy usually rears its ugly head when people are competing with their peers for something - it could be a rank, a job, a title, a man/woman 😉. In my job, the only time there is competition is when we get our student evaluations 😆. Even then, if you know how much they are worth, you won't be jealous of the person scoring the highest.

Having said that, I have definitely been at the receiving end and had wondered why certain people were behaving strangely, but the underlined part makes their behaviour comprehensible.

PS - I will admit to being envious - of everyone who can sing and paint. 😃

Originally posted by: joie de vivre

Jealousy is one of the most common emotions...All of us must have felt jealous at some point or the other😳....One of my mates has a rather interesting perception of jealousy...He says,a person is jealous if he/she can acknowledge any of the following emotions which would be brimming inside him/her

1)Anger towards the person whom one is jealous of....One simply get very annoyed with the person and dislikes everything about him/her!

2)Scepticism or Disbelief.....One tends to disagree that the person has achieved something...For instance,let's say one hears through the grapevine that his/her classmate found a top-flight job and takes home a fat pay-cheque....The immediate reaction would be to exclaim "But of course,it's all one big whopper ..It's just a part of his oveactive imagination and wishful thinking"

3)Condescension....Thoughts such as "There's nothing so great about what he has achieved,there are loads who have achieved more,so there's no need for all the hype and hoo-ha surrounding him" inundate one's mind.....

Anyone agreeing with me??😃...Has anyone here experienced anger or disbelief but couldn't recognise these two feelings for being symptomatic of jealousy??

I would add feelings of deprivation (real or imagined) , self pity and inferiority complex as a source of envy and to the list of symptoms. One must work on achieving feelings of satiation and contentment to minimise feelings of jealousy. Romantic jealousy is the most devastating form of envy.