The Green Eyed Monster

I was watching TV last month and a commercial came on. This very pretty blonde girl about 20 years old was driving an old light-colored pickup truck on a beautiful sunny day in the country. Here she is: 

A guy with a guitar was hitchhiking and she picked him up. They smiled at each other and flirted silently as she drove down the highway.

Then he notices on the dashboard a piece of paper. And the piece of paper was actually advertising a singing competition for country music. He indicated to her, as he patted his guitar, that he was competing in it too.

And then in the next scene, you see her dropping him off on the side of the road!

OMG, I love this promo for Real Country on the USA Channel!

I think most of us can agree that jealousy is not really a very pretty characteristic. Especially when it affects the relationships we are in, it's not a good thing.

But, let's face it, there are some good things about jealousy.

Can you think of one?

Okay let me just tell you, so I get to the point lol. It's actually opposite of the funny commercial.

I personally think that jealousy is a good thing when it comes to improving your pool game.

When you see other players excel or working on their game, it kind of makes you self-evaluate your own game and it can actually make you work on improving yourself. If you were playing even with someone for a couple of years, and then you see them placing better in tournaments all of a sudden, you are happy for them, sure! But you also wonder, hey, we played pretty even, why are they doing so much better than me now? And what can I do to join them in the winner's circle?

You see?

I, myself, have worked on my game to try and improve after I saw certain females excelling around me. It was the exact push I needed! Had I not seen them improve so much, I doubt I would have had the desire to work on my game.

So, being jealous isn't always a bad thing or negative situation. Sometimes you can use it to boost things in your own life! 

Jealous? Good!

Jealous has such a negative connotation in the world.

But what I have learned over the years that jealousy in pool is actually a good thing.  Why?  Because it makes you work harder!  Practice more.  Compete more.

To see your friends rise on the league standings while you go down or if they pass you up, gives you that twinge of jealous feeling in your heart.

That's actually a really good thing!  It lit a fire under me and made me try harder, practice more, and do additional things to help my game.

Use those jealousy feelings to your advantage.  Make it push you to work harder on your game and improve.

Just as a friend recently told me, "Competition is good for business."

And if you start to work on your game, the benefits will be placing higher in league, being sought-after by other teams, placing further in tournaments, etc.  So, if that jealousy feeling gets you to play better because you are working harder on your game, other teams will recognize you are improving.

And when someone builds a new team (for example), who are they going to want?  You.

Don't let it be the other guy!

If you think about it, what if we all stayed the same ranking in the stats?  That's not even fun, huh?  lol.  And, it doesn't give us much incentive to do better if we all just stay in the same ranking spot.  But if you see a friend pass your ass up, you take notice.  Or a friend who has never been in the top 10 get there, makes you want to be in the top 10, too.  Or someone who remains always in first place, makes you want to work harder to replace them.

Jealousy is a gem to our game.