Jealousy.

Jealousy is an often overwhelming feeling of insecurity about a potential loss or inequity in distribution of resources.

Wikipedia

Two best friends. They were friends since birth, judging from the way their mothers were also friends, one would guess these ladies' friendship would be buried with them. One was light skinned, the other was dark skinned. The former was not as beautiful and brainy as the latter, but who cares, their friendship grew at the dawn of each passing day.

One day, something happened, something that altered this 'happy ever after" story; forever. The former; at the age of 16, started seeing life differently from when they both played with sand. She started observing those preferential treatments diverted towards the latter. At first she didn't budge until their birthday arrived.

Oops... Forgive my manners, I forgot to tell my readers; that these two lovely friends shared the same birth date.

The latter received so much love from families and friends, the gifts were quite innumerable, the texts, calls and just everything. It was quite the opposite for the former, and that was when it all started.

Sadly also; that was when it all ended. The former killed the latter and killed herself thereafter... I guess she decided to extend their friendship by journeying them to the land of no return.

At the end, they shared the same birthdate and the same death date.

Alas!... That was how the once happy story, ended in tragedy and why?...

The former allowed her jealousy control her thinking.

Need I say this, but for some, it's easy to get jealous. Not allowing that jealousy to control and rule your thinking, is where the journey to overcome it starts from.

I always have this terrible mindset and this mindset sometimes makes me act below my capability, all because I don't want the other person who is either my senior or probably someone I met in the business, or just maybe someone who introduced me to something; see me as a rival.

The fear of doing better than the one I met there, makes me shy away from doing things to the best of my capabilities.

P.S: That notion up there, might be true and might not be, but it's just the way I view things.

I was employed as a teacher, early last year, to teach the nursery section. (You can imagine the kind of work that comes with it).

• Singing rhymes with them.

• Acting like a child, just to come down to their level of understanding.

• Shouting and jumping, just to make the classes lovely and humourous.

• Writing their class and home activities on their exercise books.

• Holding their hands to guide them in writing their curves, dashes, strokes and the likes.

I knew how to jump and shout, just like the teacher I met there knew how to, but anytime this teacher was around, I usually acted and behaved like I couldn't do it.

Alot of complaint was made, but I kept acting like; playing and teaching the kids at the same time, was something I am and was never used to.

And this was because, I had the notion that she might get jealous if the director of the school starts seeing my efforts and starts praising me more than the praises he renders to her.

Little children love it more when you play with them while teaching, lol, if you're the type that's so serious and hardly smile and you decide to teach little children with such kind of serious minded mentality. Lol, then I'm sorry, I doubt they'll listen to you.

That last paragraph simply means that, they never ever responded to me the way they would to the other teacher. And that was because I was overly acting serious and the other teacher was really playful around them.

But when she left the school, I started playing and doing everything with the kids, all these made them grow sudden affection towards me. They became free around me and always responded to my teachings and jokes.

Question here is: Was my notion about her true? Would she really had gotten jealous if the director had praised me more than he did her?.

And also: Have you ever acted below your capability, just so you won't look like a rival to the other party? Or just so the other party doesn't get unnecessarily jealous of your achievements?

There are so many ways jealousy is formed.

• Low self-esteem.

• Insecurities.

• Inferiority complex.

• Lack of contentment.

• Hatred.

• Fear...

Jealousy can be really toxic and can lead one into murder, just like the story I wrote about. It could also lead one into illegal commitment just to bring one's rival down.

Jealousy can also lead to hatred and resentment. Jealousy would make you weigh your achievements with that of others, and would make you wish the downfall of another person.

Let me stop here, I'll love to hear your reply to those questions, especially because I've done it a whole lot of time; pretending I don't know how to do a particular thing just to make the other party feel (s)he can do it best and to avoid the other party from harboring jealous thoughts towards me.

New Sponsor: The person behind me; being on this platform, thanks so much for your sponsorship, @Tomi-Ajax your support towards me right from the beginning is none to reckon with.

And to my readers...

Till we meet again in my next article and in yours.

Thanks for reading.