Let me turn jealousy, rooted in my heart,
into healthy emulation

Jealousy is selfish and covetous, blind and malignant, mean and cowardly, vindictive and cruel. It implies inferiority on the part of the person who nurses it. It broods over its inferiority and prostrates itself in impotence.

The jealous person is petty-minded. He cannot behold greatness in another. He hates his greatness to which he himself cannot rise. He cannot hear his praise. He runs him down, he blasphemes him, disparages him. The fire of jealousy burns in his heart, when he sees his neighbor win, what he himself aspired to get but failed. He resents his success. He cannot tolerate the advantage that his antagonist has over him. He cannot bear to see him surpass him. His feeling of self-importance is hurt. He chafes under the consciousness that by his superior efforts and merit his neighbor got, what he failed to get. He becomes envious and intrigues to snatch what the other holds in his hands. He hates him and is eager to harm him, if he can. He gives vent to every passing gust of passion. His heart throbs with jealousy. His jealousy reacts upon himself and makes him miserable. It tears his heart and eats into his soul. It robs him of the peace of his mind and the quite of his soul.

Let me not harbor jealousy. Let me not indulge it. Help me, Ahura Mazda, to strangle jealousy at its birth, before it grows strong and holds me in its clutches and ruins me.

Let me not be jealous of greatness. Let me not envy the prosperity of another. Let me not grudge him what I possess not. I need not be jealous of the good fortune of my neighbor. Let me not envy merit in another. Let me acknowledge his merit. Let me emulate him. Let me recognize his worth. Let me imitate it.

Emulation is a spur to action. It creates the spirit of adventure and enterprise. With the passion for emulation kindled in me, let me strive by my honest work and strenuous effort and unfailing perseverance to equal my neighbor or even to excel him by fair means, if I can. With added zest in life, let me enter into healthy rivalry with my successful neighbor to rise to his eminence, to rise above him and go beyond him in the achievement of greatness in life.

This page was last updated on Tuesday, August 01, 2000.