Finding happiness by letting your partner be

I think the best way to nurture a good relationship, be it with friends or your partners is to let them be—not exactly just watching them do what they want and silently crying inside, but really understanding what they are doing. I have seen a few relationships break and a few marriages fail because of the insecurity sprung from jealousy and possessiveness. I think it is bad in every sense. It doesn’t just take away your partner; if you feel jealous about your colleague doing much better than you it breeds unhappiness in your mind. And that in the end only affects you negatively. 

I think the most important thing is to trust your friends and partners. Why not? If you think you are trust worthy and incapable of committing an act that is not worthy of a good social rating, neither is your partner. I think it simply stands on the platform of this single fact that we are all human; similar in some of the basic thoughts and actions. 

If you are feeling jealous of your neighbor getting richer at a faster rate than you, you will only strive harder to make the same amount of money as him/her and thus tire yourself. I’m trying to project the effect of jealousy in the everyday life of small visible impacts and not from the Buddhist point of view. We all know that it is one of the negative emotions considered as the poisonous emotion that brings ill effects.

The least you can do is concentrate on your life by not concentrating on other people’s lives. You can walk on your path and if you come across someone, don’t think of them as competitors or your enemies. Don’t think of knocking them down. Think of them as just another you. 

Frequency of feeling jealousy is one of the indicators of Psychological wellbeing domain of GNH.