Jealousy

For me it's easy to acknowledge someone being better when they obviously are, and I admire it even. When someone's very close to my own skill, in things I find important, it pretty much gets thrown out the window.
8X - - - - - snip - - - - - - X8
I'm currently under quite a load of stress in multiple areas (nothing personal, it's all academically/future career-wise)

The best way to find out what you don't know, quickly, is to teach someone else. After a while, you realize that even the rawest beginners have things they can teach you too. This is why the best music is the result of collaboration and not competition. There's no "better" or "best" in music. There's only different. Just because you don't like someone's musical "voice", doesn't mean it has more or less value than yours. If you listen, you'll learn something.

As for career . . . I've had a few friends die over the years. Of all the regrets they expressed to me, not a single one wished they had spent MORE time at work.

I'd like to say I'm laid back too. Most of the time it's true, but we all do have our moments.

Here's what I can offer from my trips around the sun:

1. Guitar, like life, isn't a contest. If I end up being the world's best before I check out... well, the next morning I'll still be just as dead. On the other hand, if I focus on that fact I might not be motivated to be the best that I can be while I'm here. Play hard while you can, but realize that it's the experience that counts, not the victory. Don't get so caught up in competition that you can't enjoy the moment for what it is.

2. There will always be people better than me. That's ok. The real competition is with myself: did I do as well as I could? If I did, there's no shame in being second best, or third, or fiftieth, or fifty thousandth. I won the battle that counted today. And if I didn't do as well as I could, it's lot a loss - it's an opportunity to learn. What didn't I do as well as I could? WHY didn't I? The answers aren't always pretty, but if we're honest about it, we can be better tomorrow (and not just in guitar - in life!)

3. When you are in a clearly competitive situation, play to win. Musicians have had "cutting contests" for ages. Bring your A game or you'll be frustrated. If you've left your A game at home for any reason, just listen... and learn. Watch what they do differently from you. LISTEN to what they do differently from you. Mull it over. Take what you can use. Leave the rest for later on. There will always be more for later on - find ONE thing you can use now, and start using it.

4. Big rewards come from big risks. Stepping outside your comfort zone is scary. It's also how we grow musically. You'll fail more than you succeed, but that's how we learn every skill; you didn't take your first teetering steps and suddenly start running. Have patience and accept the fact that it's a process. As you get better, you'll still stumble (I know I still do on a regular basis). But you're building to something even better than the best you can do now.

5. Being happy with your playing isn't the same as being happy with what you play. Accept where you are now - you've worked hard to get there - and find joy in it. No one can ever take that joy from you, unless you chose to let them.

6. Three words to make your music satisfying: heart, not head. Use your head before you play (when you're practicing skills) and after (when you're critiquing what you did). But the head is only useful for learning; play from the heart, and save the thinking for when it'll actually help. I know this is really hard to do. But the truly magical musical experiences I've had in my life came when I wasn't "trying" to make them happen - they came because I was too busy just doing them.

to quote john wooden (10 ncaa basketball championships in 12 years), "Don't try to be better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best you can be," because you can't control what anyone else does.
if you have a lot of energy to put into trying to be better than someone else, it means you're not putting a lot of effort into trying to be better than you are now, or being the best you can be. especially in a non-competitive field like music, you can and should draw inspiration from everywhere, but there's nothing to be gained by trying to be "better" than someone else, since it's entirely an objective state, and will ultimately take away from the time you spent enjoying your playing and focusing on your own playing. that being said, the drive you have to get better will pay off. it would just be healthier to not focus on it as a competition, but rather a constant refinement. you think picasso was thinking "i gotta put more eyes on this chick than rembrant would?" of course not. he's just expressing his inner nature, and the closer you can get to that, the more of an artist you become.

+1 to what everyone has said so far.

Another thing to think about is that any energy put into jealousy is taken away from the energy required to improve yourself, learn and even takes away your ability to just relax and soak in what could be a nice moment. There may be times when competetion is required, but if you focused on yourself when you had to, you'll be better suited to compete when that time comes.

A good thing one can take from others is to help in goal setting. It takes an additional step. You have to know what the items are that you don't know. In other words, you have to answer the "what do I need to learn in order to play in that style or with that much technical ability?" question. Not always easy.

There is a book written by a golf instructor that is no longer with us. He writes of how one of his students was gushing with confidence right before a match-play thing. He said that he was going to win easily because the other golfer had poor form in his swing and his own was so good that there was no way he could lose. Well, he lost. The instructor told his student that the other guy won because he had gotten to the same level with his poor form, and it was because he had to work harder to perfect his poor form to get the same results, and that caused him to become more in-tune to his own swing than most golfers.

He also said that he would have students show him their imitations of other famous golfers. His students would try to imitate golfers of fame that you could tell who they were 300 yards away because of their swing. To him, though, they always looked like the same swing that they had before trying to imitate. They had the same bad habits, good habits and tendencies in the imitation swings that they had in their own.

I guess my point is probably a rehash of others' who've responded already, but I do love to ramble. :D :D

I'm jealous of everything

I hope this doesn't come out wrong...

Something I have observed in dealing with a family member who suffers from depression.
She sets impossibly high standards for herself and others.
Perfection is the only acceptable outcome. Anything less is a sign of personal weakness and failure.
Of course, it is impossible for any human to achieve that, so she is constantly disappointed in herself (and others).
Which deepens her depression.
Set new (impossible) goals, and repeat...

A couple of years ago it led to the brink of suicide, and a 2 month hospitalization in a psyc ward.

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Try to be realistic in your goals. Striving to be better than you are now is a good thing.
Trying to be better than "the best that ever was" is just setting yourself up for disappointment, and not good for your mental health.
Most people are very good at one, maybe 2 things.
No person was ever "the best" at everything they tried. No matter how hard they work at it.

I'm a bit of a 'recovering' perfectionist myself, not to the level you describe, but its for sure a terrible thing.

I was quite interested in the OP's point about him not minding people being a lot better than him, but if they are only a little better then it drives him crazy.

I play football (soccer) in my home town, and I have a good(?) friend how definitely seems jealous that I'm better than him. Yet although I'm decent, I'm certainly not the best player there, so why wouldn't he be jealous of them, instead of me? I think its because he sees me as being similar to him - age, build, agility etc and it drives him crazy that I can do things that he can't. I also suspect that he's jealous of my music, and again I'm not brilliant at that, just ok..... its becoming annoying enough that I'm reconsidering the friendship, which is a shame, as most off the time he's a decent enough friend to have.

This is my first post on the forum which I read quite a lot, congratulations on making it so good. Cheers.

Welcome to the forum, Wordy76.

I was reminded of something else due to your post. Jealousies can injure friendships and families. I believe it spawns negative thought patterns which come to service as spoken word in the form of anything from snide comments to talking behind others' backs in a bad manner.

In turn, when in a cruel mood, I used to play off successes as nothing or seemingly effortless to those who where driven by jealousy or at least comparision. I did it just to watch people eat themselves up from the inside-out. I guess lots of folks have a mean streak deep inside them somewhere. :mrgreen:

So to compare this to working out, which I've recently started, so it's still fresh in my mind:

In the P90X workouts, they are tough, they are strenuous they are long...but when things are going to get tough, the lead guy there, Tony Horton, always says, "Don't Try to BE a Hero", pace your self, take your time, the physical exertion can lead to injury, like the mental exertion on the guitar can lead to injury in your playing and mental health. Just do your best, forget the rest. Your best is ALWAYS good enough, and your best will ALWAYS get better.

There are people on Youtube I watch and say...why bother...but then realize, I'm not trying to get famous, I just want to play music!

Good luck!!

Really nice to see all the replies, guys! I could recognise myself in a lot of the things said, and even the others had experiences definitely worth the read. It's really about turning the negative into the positive for me, and I'm glad to see so many people have experienced issues in the same area and ultimately grew past them. Even reading things you know inside helps, it's so much easier to face physical problems than the ones inside, sometimes the view's needed. And of course I don't take offense Kent_eh, I definitely see where you're coming from and I come here to hear opinions and experiences aside from my own!

Jealousy can be great because of the reason you stated liontable - It leads to competition.

Being a sore loser is bad, but having the drive to compete and improve is surely what it is all about?

It only becomes a bad thing for some people because they get bitter when they arent the best, while the rest of us with our heads screwed on know that there will always be somebody better :D

I'm jealous of everything

+1

One thing to remember - no one is better or worse than you - were all just different.

I am pretty happy where I am and I love playing, it fills me with joy every time.

I have had some lovely compliments from people, especially on guitar noise and some horrible comments from other walks of life (never guitar noise). I even did one jam with dogbite which I thought was sloppy and horrible, so I sent it to him because I could not be bothered re-recording it - he thought it was amazing. Didn't get that LOL!!! Ended up being "my dog has fleas" and it was all out of sync but he said he didn't notice (that's how bad the playing was).

Normally though I am really happy with my playing but I am a live performer essentially, I never spend enough time planning my solos which is my weakness I guess.