Do you feel Jealous? Or is it Envy that you feel?
We all know the word "jealous", because it has been used widely. "Jealous" is largely apply in regards to romantic feeling, something that we familiar with.
Now, let's take a look at this sentences:
She feels jealous when she looked at the shiny new car her neighbor bought.
The husband kill that man, out of jealousy.
He looked at them with jealousy, as they set off foot from the limousine.
I feel jealous, because my son took my mother in law's side at yesterday's argument.
Do you still feel jealous with how she can spent unlimited money to get a vacation?
Do you think that the term "jealous" fit in all those sentences?
The answer: IT'S NOT
It's not difficult to use "jealous" and "envy" properly. The difference between those two is very straightforward.
From the description above, now we know that the correct ways to use "jealous" is in sentence 2 and 4.
We only can be jealous of something that we already have.
And with "Envy", it's something that we feel because someone else have what we don't have.
So, when you scroll through social media, and saw that your friends are living large, going vacation here and there, spending money and time like they have unlimited supply, and you feel this pang of "jealous" feeling.. News to you, the correct term is ENVY.
Why I blog about this, you might ask..
It's because of my husband. We work at the same office, just at the another division, so a lot of his friends from work is also my friend. His work require him to work out of town frequently, something like 2-3 times a month, for the duration of 5 days at a time. When he go out of town, it always as a team, of at least 5-6 people. When they finished their work early, for that day, they then hang out at caffe or just chill at some place chic in that town.
My husband doesn't really collect photos, but most of his colleague does, and that's where I mostly saw photos when they hang out. There's this one particular trip, where I got so confused of my feeling when I saw photos from that trip. I saw multiple photo where my husband get so close to his female colleague, in front of cabin where they all stay. Let's take a note that, it's not only two of them, but there's like 10 of them, both female and male colleague of my husband. Having fun, grilling meat, playing guitar, singing, eating and drinking together.
But I clearly feel this pang of jealousy, and I asked myself, "Do I actually feel jealous of this women?"
So, in the end, after I did some assessment on my feelings, it's not jealousy that I feel, but rather I envy him because he can take sometime off from kids, from house, from house work. And somehow I accidentally extrapolate this to this conclusion: So he did this every every month? He get to have these mini-vacations and I'm stuck with this boring routine of work-kids-house-work thing?
It is clear as a day, that I feel ENVY, not jealous.
How this difference benefit me, you may ask?
I'm a person with a tendency to process and asses everything when I dealt with problems. I don't say I'm a very logic person, but I like to deal problems with logical way of thinking, as long as it possible. So instead of just bombarding my husband with questions, or lashing out emotionally at him, I need a process to know, whether what I feel is the "right" feeling or not. So when I react emotionally, at least I direct that reaction to the right person, because of the right problem.