When I was a teenager my girlfriend and I were discussing not understanding why people feel jealous of others. My girlfriend share a piece of wisdom with me that I have always remembered.

She said her mother would tell her, "There will always be someone prettier than you, and there will always be someone not as pretty. There will always be someone wealthier and always someone not as wealthy. No matter what it is there will always be someone who is better off and always someone not as well off, so there is no point worrying about any of it."

Some people say that money is the root of all evil. I almost wonder if jealousy is really the root of all evil. Jealousy makes people hate people they don't know, assume nasty things about people who aren't nasty, and enjoy the pain of people simply because the jealous person deems that other deserves some pain. School children learn early that if they are at the top of the class there will be at least a few other kids who don't like them. The jealous kid will often think, "He thinks he's big because he always gets good grades." In reality, the poor A-student often thinks, "It isn't my fault I got an 'A'. I don't think I'm 'big'".

Very attractive people often have to deal with the same type of jealousy. Someone thinks that because someone else is pretty she must be conceited. It isn't always true, and not everyone in the world is jealous of pretty people. Still, a pretty person has to deal with "attacks" of jealous people more than she should have to. Wealthy people have their share of jealous people who need to believe they're corrupt, even if they're not. Slender people may find themselves not liked by jealous overweight people. Again, not all overweight people are jealous of slender people, but that doesn't change the fact that people should not be disliked for being fit.

Jealous people attribute incorrect traits to the objects of their jealousy. They will believe that someone who seems intelligent must be arrogant. They may believe that someone with beautiful hair "must spend all her time on her hair" (when maybe, she just wakes up and combs it). When people have well behaved children a jealous person may need to believe those parents are controlling. If the jealousy is over youth, an older person may refuse to take seriously a young person's opinions. For goodness sake, there are even insecure people who are jealous of people who are not insecure!

Jealousy, by itself, wouldn't have to be such an evil thing if it's possessor didn't allow it to color his thinking. Usually, though, a person prone to jealousy is also prone to allowing it to color his thinking. He will look for flaws in the more advantaged individual, and sometimes if he can't find any he'll invent some. A jealous individual may also just dislike perfectly nice people because he feels threatened by them.

While some jealous people may only be jealous of one specific thing (wealthy, physical attractiveness, pretty hair, intelligence, etc.), some will be jealous of everyone who makes them feel threatened in any area. These are people who will dislike some people because they are slender, others because they are very intelligent, others because they are wealthy, and even some who have reputations for being very nice. While jealousy can come from insecurity and feeling threatened, it can also come from an inflated ego that always needs to be Number 1, no matter what the area.

For the individual who always needs to be Number 1, I'm not sure there are ways to manage the jealousy that comes from that. People like this can find themselves liking very few people and living in a world from which they are somewhat alienated. People with this "all around" jealousy often just make up what other people "must think" (and they always make up something negative), and then they will dislike other people for the make-believe type of thinking they've assigned to them. We all often tend to think that everyone else is like us. The person plagued with nastiness, jealousy, and dislike of others often believes that everyone else is just like him. Once convinced of how nasty everyone else is, this type of jealous individuals get to return himself, in his own mind, to his place as Number 1 and superior. If there is a way to overcome such a poisonous way of thinking, it may be to be honest with oneself about the bad feelings, the need to feel superior rather than inferior, and the presence of jealousy; and then to simply remind oneself of what jealousy does - and stop thinking that way. Telling oneself that everyone does not think the same way may help. It may also help to tell oneself that people with positive attributes/achievements/circumstances are not all conceited. Remembering that people work hard for some things may help. It may help, too, to realize that people can't always choose their positive traits. Most important, perhaps, is keeping in mind that there is room for all kinds of people to have all kinds of things going for them; and that one person's having great abs doesn't mean someone else can't have them too.

With the less serious jealousy that involves being jealousy over one specific thing (money, nice hair, great abs, nice kids, etc.) the best way to stop may be to simply not allow oneself to keep up the jealous thinking. Focusing on someone's expensive car makes no sense. First, that person may have worked hard to get that car. Second, the world has more serious things to worry about than who has the best cars.

With some sources of jealousy, the fact is anyone could have the positive thing if they were willing to work hard enough to get it. The kid in school who gets "A's" usually takes the work seriously and pays attention in class. The person with a great physique usually watches his diet and exercises. People who have well behaved children put it a lot of time and attention, and people with attractive children often simply make the effort to dress them attractively. If the source of jealousy is money, keeping in mind that someone else's wealth doesn't mean we can't be wealthy too can help.

People who suffer from jealousy need to ask themselves if they want to live their lives not liking perfectly nice people and not having wonderful friends. They need to ask if they want to live their lives with the mind full of toxic dislike of innocent people. They need to realize that life is short, and it makes no sense to fill our heads with nastiness. Something else to ask is whether one wants to count onself among the "have's" because, after all, flat abs or a nice car don't, by themselves, constitute being a "have". On the other hand, sufferers of jealousy need to ask if they'd prefer to take their place among the "have not's", always looking from afar at those happy "have's".

One of the worst things about jealousy is it makes people who think in an ugly way believe everyone else must think that way as well. When someone jealous thinks everyone else is the same as he is there are two possible results: 1) the individual will believe everyone in the world thinks in an ugly way or 2) the individual will know, in his heart, he is lying to himself, and that he is isolated from the real world.

If none of the above suggestions work, it could help to keep in mind that the world is full of so much suffering and sadness. Does any of us really want to use the gifts of living and thinking and time spinning our wheels over who has better hair, more money, or better grades?

Besides the girlfriend mentioned above, I had another girlfriend. We were ten or so when I was in her mother's kitchen and spotted a little card taped to the refrigerator. The card said, "Small minds think about people. Average minds think about things. Great minds think about ideas." I was only, as I said, about ten years old, but as I read that card I could feel more air in my lungs and my heart pound just a tiny bit; and I thought about how I would remember those words for the rest of my life.

Jealousy isn't thinking about ideas, and it isn't even thinking about things. It's thinking about people. It is for small minds, and it will make them both smaller and uglier. As with all negative emotions, jealousy should be stopped the minute it shows up and replaced with thinking that is more worthy.