Happy jealousy

November 15th

Again, before writing a post here, I debated with myself on what would be the correct word order for the title of this post. This time, I had two choices—“Happy jealousy” or “Jealous happiness”. I had to look deep within myself to judiciously measure my emotions and see which one is more prevalent and dominating. After the search, I came to the conclusion that even though I definitely feel jealousy toward another person, my feeling of happiness from seeing the unbridled happiness of the same person is clearly overshadowing all other emotions in me. And that made me even happier — this time just for myself and magnanimity.

My coworker was just offered a new job. And that was a position for which I applied as well. Last week we both had a job interview at the company and I thought mine went exceptionally well — I mean, there was nothing I could do better under the stressful situation. Apparently, hers was better and she got it. She told me this in the afternoon, and I have to admit my first thought was “why not me” and my first emotion was jealousy. For a moment I felt gloomy. But seeing her so happy, just simply beaming with joy and smiling and almost jumping up and down with satisfaction, quickly changed my mood. Pure joy is infectious, and within seconds I was jumping up and down with her, bursting with happiness and delight, sharing her triumph.

I still feel happy for her. And her elation gives me another stimulus to expand my search for a new job. I want to feel it myself being in the position she was in today, and hopefully, another person will share my happiness as well when it happens to me.