Envy or "Good" Jealousy
We all know that nothing good comes out of envy and jealousy because both things just shows our resentment for someone else's success and achievement. But something happened a while back that got me asking myself if there's any term out there known as the good jealousy.. Let me explain.
Some few weeks ago, a friend of mine had uploaded a video of himself driving a car that belonged to another friend of his who was also in the car. When I first saw the video, I had sent my friend congratulatory messages on WhatsApp because I had thought he was the owner of the car, but he had immediately told me that the car wasn't his and that the only reason he was behind the wheels was because the owner didn't know how to drive yet.
Having that information, I had still gone ahead to repost the video on my WhatsApp status, still congratulating my friend for "buying" a car. I had done that because I had a lot of people on my contact list who also were mutual friends and I knew they would all be surprised that he had gotten himself a car, so to me, it was just me pranking my friends.
Anyways, about thirty minutes later after uploading that same video, a mutual friend of ours (who knew me and the presumed car owner) had sent me a text, asking me to be honest about who really own the car. Now normally, I would come out clean and tell him it was a joke but for some reason I decided to wait a bit and play along, that was when I noticed that this friend wasn't exactly happy about the news.
Before I eventually told him it was a lie, I could tell he was getting jealous, not exactly because he hated the fact that a friend of his bought a car, but because that friend buying a car made him feel like he has been wasting his life away, doing nothing. And I could tell he felt relieved the moment I told him that the whole thing was a lie because he immediately sent me a voice note, telling me he knew I was lying, his voice somewhat filled with satisfaction.
I didn't tell him about the things I observed, partly because I felt I knew the kind of emotions he was exhibiting, but now the question is, is that a good behaviour to expect from a friend who wants more for himself, or is this a dangerous red flag that just shows how unhappy that person who be if something great happens in the life of his friends?
To be honest I think it's not good when a friend feels jealous to see the success of another friend. In fact, I feel doubt in the case of friendship. It's because I think a real friend will be happy to see the success of a friend. I am saying it based on my observation.
I totally agree with you.. But the thing is that I don't really see his jealousy as him being jealous.. I feel it's a form of motivation for him to do more.
It is a fact that when we are successful or we get promoted after working for a long time, there are people who are very jealous of us and they want all these things that What we have achieved with hard work is that they should go back and we should not go above them.
True, people tend to get jealous when they see someone else doing well, but is all jealousy bad jealousy?
When we have taken a car and our friend doesn't have a car, he will start jealous with us