I’m going to cure you of jealousy today. And for that, all you need is to be able to do a thought experiment that I’ll describe in this post.

Types of Jealousy

There are two types of jealousy. One is what you feel when you are afraid that someone will take something away from you. Like if your girlfriend is giving attention to another man, you feel jealous of that man. The other type of jealousy—one that I am going to address in this post—is what you feel looking at someone who has what you want.

That’s also called envy.

You feel jealous (or envious) looking at the man with a great physique. You feel jealous looking at your boss making double the money doing half as much work as you do. You feel jealous looking at someone traveling to exotic places of the world. You feel jealous looking at someone with a hot chick.

There are plenty of reasons to feel jealous every day. On top of everything, social media where everyone is seemingly living a cool life keeps fueling jealousy in people. But you can be free of jealousy with some mental effort. The hack is in the thought experiment that I am about to share with you.

The Thought Experiment

I got this thought experiment from Naval Ravikant while listening to the Farnam Street podcast. I find Naval to be an incredibly brilliant individual.

Here’s the thought experiment he suggested: When you are feeling jealous of someone because they have what you want, imagine that you can swap your life with them. Then you will have the thing that’s making you jealous of them; but not just that, you will have to have all of their life.

You will completely swap your life with theirs. You won’t be you anymore. You’ll be them. All aspects of their life will be yours. Would you like to make that exchange if you’re given a chance?

I wouldn’t.

I may have felt jealous looking at someone’s success, but to get their life would be too risky. They might have an unhealthy body. They might have insane work pressure. And who knows if they’re intelligent or not.

I know myself. I know I’m smart. I may not be rich but I trust my ability to get rich or at least create a great life for myself. So I won’t trade my life for anyone else’s. And I’m confident that most people would not be willing to make that kind of switch.

What is the point of feeling jealous of someone if you won’t be willing to have their life? You can’t cherry-pick specific aspects of someone’s life and say you want this person’s body, that person’s woman, and the other person’s wealth. Everyone’s life is a package of good and bad things. You are feeling jealous looking at just one aspect of someone’s life. But if you could look at all the aspects you might find that your life is better in many ways.

They might appear to be living a cool and comfortable life, but what do you know about their struggles and hardships? What do you know about their health condition, the state of their relationships, the level of their mental peace, their intelligence, and the overall quality of their life? They may have all the good in their life, but you won’t know. So you won’t take the risk of swapping your life with them. You don’t want to completely exchange your life with them because you are not sure that their life is or can be better than yours. So then what are you feeling jealous about?

That’s it. This should cure your jealousy.

Jealousy and Self-Improvement

Jealousy can be harnessed for self-improvement. When you feel jealous looking at someone, you can use that feeling as motivation to push yourself to achieve what they have.

But the problem with that is most people are not good at managing jealousy. The idea of using jealousy positively makes sense in theory, but when you actually feel jealous, it’s likely destructive.

Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life has one of the rules that states, compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today. I think that rule serves well as far as self-improvement is concerned. It is not very sensible to look at someone else and compare yourself with them.

You can surely admire someone for their success and achievements, and draw inspiration from them, but you have your own unique strengths and weaknesses. Your self-improvement plan should be drawn considering your own characteristics. And so long as you keep getting better than your older self, you can be sure you will have a great life ahead.