Tall Poppies and Jealousy

Hey Guys x

This post is partly a response to Carrie Hope Fletcher's video 'Tall Poppies', which you can watch below:

 



 

She talks about 'Tall Poppy Syndrome'.

 

Tall Poppy Syndrome means 'a social phenomenon in which people of genuine merit are resented, attacked, cut down, or criticised because their talents or achievements elevate them above or distinguish them from their peers' according to Wikipedia.

 

However, Carrie added more to this definition. She said that it was when someone encourages their friend to do well in life, but then resents them if they do better than they wanted them to.

 

For example, if you and your best friend are both aspiring writers and you encourage your friend to try and get something published, just as they do to you, as most friends would do. However, if you both try to get something published and your friend makes it and you don't, you then feel jealous of them and resent them for this.

 

Now let me be honest, I am the first person to admit that I internally cut down tall poppies. I would never do this to anyone's face, but I do get jealous of other people's achievements, or at least, I have in the past.

 

But everyone gets jealous.

 

Jealously is seen as a seriously negative emotion. In terms of psychology, when I talk about jealousy, I mean envy. Wanting what someone else has, rather than feeling threatened by what someone else wants. And I think that this is completely normal.

 

For example, if you revise really hard for an exam and end up with a B (which is not a bad mark at all!), you may feel envious of someone who did no revision and managed to walk out of the exam hall with an A*. That's normal and everyone feels jealous at one point or another.

 

So I guess what I'm saying is that, it's normal to occasionally cut down a tall poppy. Internally anyway.

 

Carrie's advice was just to tell someone that you're jealous of them. And in some cases, this is fine. For example, if you're wearing something and you feel fat or ugly, and your friend looks really nice, it's fine to tell your friend how amazing they look and that you're completely jealous of them.

 

However, in some cases, it's not alright.

 

It's not alright to physically cut someone down just because they're doing better than you in some aspect of life.

 

From my point of view, I never physically cut people down (or at least never intentionally) because everyone has the right to be as successful as they can be. Just because someone is more successful than me doesn't mean that they don't deserve it.

 

I know that sometimes it's really hard to be happy for someone when all you want to do is take their success for yourself and leave them with nothing.

 

But my advice is that, if you can't be genuinely happy for someone - ACT happy for them, and wait for the feelings to come later, if they ever do.

 

And if they don't, I think that's ok. It's ok to be jealous... just make sure that the jealousy doesn't consume your life.

 

Because at the same time, if it was the other way around, you'd want people to be genuinely happy for you, no matter what.

 

That's just my thoughts on Carrie's video.

 

Thank you for reading

 

Comment below your thoughts on 'Tall Poppy Syndrome'

 

Keep Smiling  - Lou xx