the flames of jealousy continue to burn me
Dear Fatima,
I am a senior in high school and I have major problems with jealousy. I am just jealous of certain people who have better friends than I do. Its not like I don’t have those kinds of friends but they are not the kinds that I have known for so long that I could hang out with them. Everyone has friends they can call over any day and laugh at good old memories with but I just don’t have those friends. What can I do to cure this? Please help 🙁
Assalamu ‘alaykum,
Jealousy is one of those things that most everyone struggles with at some point or another.
Most times it comes from being dissatisfied with what you have and wishing you had something that someone else seems to have.
What’s tough to see is that others have their own challenges and that we don’t really see what those challenges are until we are very close to them. They may appear to have great relationships with friends for example, but they may not really. Or if they do have great relationships, they may struggle in some other area of their lives such as their health, or finances, etc.
It’s hard. We know our own struggles so well that sometimes we feel like we are the only one struggling.
So it’s easy to wish to trade places with someone else.
Yet, Allah (swt) gives us the challenges and the blessings that are best for us. That means they are tailor made for us so that they allow us to grow and become the best we can be, and that trading places with someone else would mean that we would get their challenges along with their blessings – and those challenges weren’t meant for us. Another person’s challenges would test us in ways that wouldn’t be good for our spiritual, emotional, and social growth.
So that leaves the question of how do we deal with the feelings we have when we see somebody with something we wished we have.
One way is to make a gratitude list that will help us remember that while we don’t have the exact thing that the other person has, we do have a lot to be grateful for. Writing it down, re-reading it when we are sad, and adding to it when we think of something new to be grateful for allows us to hold onto gratitude when we most need it.
Another way is to take the time to know people’s challenges, especially those whose challenges are more intense than our own, so that we can appreciate the fact that we all struggle in different ways – which helps when we realize that others have some of the joys that we wish we had.
It takes time, and is it’s okay to feel sad now and again.
Yet, it’s our struggle to be better and to grow that makes life meaningful, and living a meaningful life is a beautiful thing.
wa ‘alaykum salam,
Sincerely,
Your sister in Islam,
“Fatima Z”
Anonymous
Hi Sweetheart,
Jealousy is a very, veryyy natural emotion. It’s how you respond to your emotion which makes or breaks the situation. As soon as you feel jealous say Astaghfirullah…find peace in knowing that the person you are feeling jealous of has their own journey of pain, troubles and heart ache. Nobody has a perfect life. Nobody.
Feeding off of jealousy makes your body heavy, it makes your heart weak and it makes the quality of your life less. Why? Because you are so focused on what someone else has that you forgot to water the grass on your own side of the fence.
The simple solution to jealousy is GRATITUDE. Can you move your fingers to type? Be grateful. Can you eat without a feeding tube pumping food into your stomach? Be thankful. Can you talk and hear? Be thankful. The list of things to be thankful is so endless, it will keep you so busy that you will rarely be able to find time to peak into someone else’s life. A good way to stop the roller coaster of jealousy from going haywire is remember to tell yourself : mind your own business. Whoever you think has it amazing…take my word on it, this is not Jannah…nobody has it perfect.
Best wishes
HA18
Feeling jealous sucks. Anytime I feel jealous, it makes me wonder what’s wrong with me that I don’t have those things that other people do?
Feeling that way is so self-defeating and makes me feel so negative. However, at the same time, it highlights what is really important to me. For example, I might not get jealous about someone having bought a brand new house or car, but I might get jealous that someone who I care about is having a great friendship with someone else who is not me. It highlights to me that I don’t care too much about material things, but I care about having the people who I feel close to always to be close to me. I am afraid that they might find other friendships and move on.
From that, I try to pay attention to where my fear is coming from. It may be that I have lost close friends in the past and I don’t know why they left. It could be that I hate feeling alone and having a close relationship gives me a great deal of emotional satisfaction and happiness. Either way, I try to grow from it.
Don’t let jealousy explode in your face and take you over. It’s such a powerful emotion that is unfortunately a very negative one. Remember to put it in perspective and try to see what it is teaching you.
Wishing you the best friendships in your future.