Being jealous is actually good for you

Our family app looked like a travel brochure. My brother was sitting with his girlfriend on a peeling Italian balcony with white wine, my father and brother restrained cycling a handsome green mountain in Spain while I was at the office. So I saw myself sending ‘okay, I believe I'm a little jealous’. Yes, even on the bike ride.  I have a very, very, very above-average fun job, don't get me wrong, but I can only handle a certain percentage of vacation enjoyment from someone else before my wanderlust takes over. Good news for when you feel jealous too: it apparently is good for you.

You can be jealous, feel envy, or covet. It might all feel just a fraction different, but it comes down to one thing: you want what someone else has or does. By the way, did you know that nothing is as satisfying as spending your money on vacations?  Science says so, so I dare to admit here that I was a bit jealous of my family. Not that I thought it was stupid that they were on vacation, but I just wanted to go too (as we speak, I'm sitting with my derrière in Greece by the way – everything turned out fine).

Jealousy doesn't feel nice, but if you want to achieve something, nothing is more motivating than that. Social psychologist and jealousy researcher (cool job you have then) Niels van de Ven from Tilburg University explains to Quest Psychology that jealousy shows you what is important to you and also encourages you to work harder. It motivates you, you set higher goals for yourself to match someone else, and often you achieve better results. By envying someone else, you actually become better yourself. Just be careful, because jealousy quickly turns into envy if you think someone doesn't deserve something. And envy doesn't make anyone nicer or more attractive.

Meanwhile, we don't consider ourselves jealous by the way: a study by Quest shows that only 47 percent of men think they are sometimes jealous and only 32 percent of women. Above 50 years, it all becomes much more virtuous, as 53 percent claims to never have those feelings. Jealousy researcher Van de Ven quickly dismisses that, saying that even the most devoted Buddhist is sometimes jealous of the zen-being of another Buddhist.

Fortunately, I was only jealous of my family because they went four weeks earlier. But remember: you can get something good out of jealousy.

Source: Quest