Jealous much?

I never understand why people become so jealous that they feel the need to bring others down.  It’s okay to be jealous, but to a certain extent.  You could want what someone else has, whether it’s a tangible thing or a state of being.  You’re jealous that the spoiled girl in your class got a brand new car for her birthday, for instance, or her super attractive boyfriend.  Or maybe you’re jealous that the person you can’t stand seems to be happy when you aren’t feeling very positive.

In English, we were given The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, and so far, it’s quite dramatic.  Similar to a high school classroom.  You have the teacher’s pet and class favorite (Dantés), his girlfriend and the most sought after girl in the grade (Mercédes), the try hard that wants to be on good terms with the teacher (Danglars), and the kid who is hopelessly in love with a girl that’s friendzoned him on multiple occasions (Fernand).  Of course there are other characters, but these are the most important for the point I’m trying to make.  Danglars and Fernand are both jealous of what Dantés has and they want it for themselves.  They could just accept things the way that they are, but they choose to set up a man who believes they are his “friends”.  Dantés is too nice and thinks too highly of people to notice it, however.  He believes they are kind to him and would never do anything to hurt him, but this naiveness proves to hurt him in the end.

So, back to the jealousy.  Danglars is jealous of Dantés because Dantés is most likely going to become captain of a ship despite his young age.  Danglars obviously wants that position for himself and is jealous that Captain Leclére, prior to his death, Morrel, the shipowner, along with the shipmates are very fond of Dantés.  Danglars wants that kind of attention for himself and tries to stir up trouble to get rid of Dantés.  Fernand wants to marry Mercédes, who is completely in love with Dantés.  Both of these men would readily dispose of Dantés if they had a chance, and they end up doing so.  Danglars and Fernand are lazy and cowards, in my opinion.  They are fake towards Dantés and lead him to believe that they are his friends while they stab him in the back.  Makes my comparison to high school more relevant, huh?  People pretend they’re your friends and really have motives to bring you down.  No matter what you do someone just seems to want something that you have.  Instead of working hard to be rewarded in some other way, they choose to take what you have.  They don’t want to put any real work in and just steal what they want.

On the other hand, you can’t let people walk all over you.  You can’t be naive and believe everyone wants the best for you.  Not everyone wants to see you succeed; there are people waiting for you to mess up so they can make you feel worse about yourself.  These people have no lives and find pleasure in other people’s misfortunes.  They want their lives to seem better by making someone else’s miserable and it isn’t right.  But the best way to deal with these people is ignore them.  Be kind to them, but you should be aware of who your true friends are.  People can be deceiving and by the time you find out someone isn’t the person you thought they were, it’s too late.  So to all those people trying to get ahead in life by backstabbing and betraying your friends….