Feeling Green

Image rights: http://greenbydesign.com

A not so happy feeling. It is not painful. But it is not pleasant too. Very uncomfortable. A feeling which we rather everyone else around us feels. It makes us wish we were not in that place, at that moment, experiencing that inexplicable sense of longing towards something which we know we cannot possibly have. It tends to bring out the devil lurking in our minds. It tempts us to abandon reasoning, to get back at it by urging us to take certain decisions not out of necessity but to implant this very feeling into the people around us. We do not want to experience that feeling ever again but we want everyone else to feel it. We want to know that they are feeling it and we want to, and probably will, feel happy about it. This, I think is a very sad paradox. Envy. It is sad that it had to be associated with a lovely color like green.

It is, in a way, like a bubble in the financial markets. There is no real happiness. There are only depictions of happiness, by some people. These depictions in turn, cause envy in other people. They in return, fueled by a deep desire to retaliate, portray stronger depictions of happiness. They try to satisfy themselves in doing this. They do it to get back at the others, even if they have to undergo some pain – even if they have to sacrifice some other real satisfaction or happiness. And the vicious cycle goes on, destroying whatever real happiness is actually present.

I see this quite predominant today. The culprit – social networking. Yes, social networking portals are like incubators of envy. We think someone is cool in doing something, be it witty status messages or colorful photographs which try to say that the people in the photographs are having a lot of “fun” or relationship updates with “hot” members of the opposite sex or achievements or something else. We burn (with envy). We want to be the objects of envy too. So we take a lot of pain to sound/look/feel cool. And then we wait, for a more challenging object of envy.

I probably sound like a senile cynic in blaming the social networking platforms for spreading envy but just think about it. At some point of time, everyone of us would probably have done something similar to what I have talked about here. May be not in such a dramatic way, but in more of a subtle and sub conscience driven manner. The point I am trying to make is – do not, at any cost, intentionally or unintentionally, be driven by the desire to feel happy by causing envy around you, and in the process, lose any little happiness you already have. Envy is a negative energy and nothing good shall come out of it.

So, think twice before you go on that trip you have been planning for a very long time, just to flood Facebook with pictures from the trip :P