“Jealousy originates from fear or anger over the prospect of failure in achieving a desired goal”.
A simple online search will lead you to various definitions of ‘jealousy’. Basically, it comes from intense feelings of insecurity. This is compounded in the modern age by social media, where one is able to see other people apparently succeeding while one is seemingly failing. As a person who suffers from low self esteem, I understand this state of mind completely.
Especially, during the festive season, one is inundated with images and videos of people celebrating and having a good time. For me personally, seated alone at home, looking at all this, it’s easy to become jealous and even angry, that sense of being marginalized because nobody invited me to any of these wonderful activities.
As a musical artist, the same applies as well, when people share about their successes and I can also witness the multitude of likes and positive comments that accompany said Facebook post or tweet. Again, seated alone at home, it doesn’t take much to feel like a failure in comparison – I begin to wonder why I have not achieved similar success in my artistic life.
Then there is anger and it is pushed outwards as a defensive mechanism. Instead of constructive reflection, jealously would drive oneself to direct the blame at others. The usual excuses – that person must be rich or have connections or very lucky or be good looking but untalented etc.
But none of this really helps – all it does is isolate the jealous sufferer even more and exacerbates the situation. Ultimately, self-awareness is the ‘cure’ for jealousy. Acknowledge your failures and do something about them. Seek advice and make a plan to overcome failure in order to take that first step towards success.
… still there’s more …
Good post Kev. I feel where you are coming from. I often feel the same way myself. It’s very easy to look around at other artists and wonder what it will take to get noticed. Sadly in this day and age of social media I do think that a lot of bands are more in the business of “appearing” to be successful rather actually being successful and crafting quality material. Getting likes or comments posted usually has more to do with obligatory networking, one hand washing another, or the bullshit purchase of bots to inflate numbers. For a lot of folks I think it’s much more about building a brand and less about building a catalogue of music. Oh well, I get jealous too and sometimes I think I just like getting pissed. We can’t control people liking our music but are compelled to write it anyway. We’re songwriters man. We do it whether anyone pays attention or not. Maybe we’re vain. Maybe we’re batshit crazy. And yeah, sometimes we’re jealous… But without a doubt we’re fucking artists… The rest is just foreplay.
Absolutely, Matt. It’s all about the music for people like us. I do appreciate your comments and your support. Happy New Year!