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Love is not Jealous
Once upon a time, The Dingo and little Max were really looking forward to the fall season. Not only would there be a cool breeze in the air and beautiful color changes in the trees, but it also meant it was time for the Annual Great Pumpkin Contest in their town. The winner of this prestigious contest not only won a fancy blue ribbon and a pair of free movie tickets, but they also got their picture in the local paper with their prize winning pumpkin.
Several months earlier they spent a lot of time researching how to grow the perfect giant pumpkin and learned lots of stuff like: the perfect season for planting, the proper soil conditions, pruning, fertilizing, and they even went as far as buying pumpkin seeds from last year’s great pumpkin winner. The Dingo and little Max put a lot of hard work into growing their pumpkins and they were both ready for the big event.
As the weeks went by and their pumpkins got bigger and bigger, the buzz in the neighborhood was that Kitty Kitterton had been growing a pretty impressive sized pumpkin as well! Little Max couldn’t believe it. It seemed that every time he turned around Kitty Kitterton was one step ahead of him: first in line, first to be picked, and always winning first place in contests. It made little Max very jealous of her and it showed whenever he talked about it.
The Dingo knew that feeling all too well. It’s definitely not easy to be in someone else’s shadow, whether it be a sibling, a co-worker or even a classmate, but he knew it was important for the little guy to learn how to overcome this difficult emotion and rise above.
The Dingo started off by showing little Max the definition of the word “jealous” in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
- 1. a : intolerant of rivalry or unfaithfulness. b : disposed to suspect rivalry or unfaithfulness
- 2. : hostile toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage
The definition contained negative words like “intolerant” and “hostile.” Little Max didn’t want to be any of those things and if that’s what it meant to be jealous then he definitely did not want to be known or seen as a jealous person. There was only one problem though: He didn’t know how NOT to be jealous of Kitty Kitterton!
The Dingo explained how in life, we have to learn to celebrate other people’s accomplishments & advantages. We should be happy for others not envious and if we know someone who does something very well, we should take note and learn from them. At some point, we need to celebrate who we are, be satisfied with what we have and accept our own level of strengths & weaknesses. We were created to be super awesome and to accomplish great things large and small.
It was a lot for little Max to take in and it was very hard on his pride to think that he had to be happy for Kitty Kitterton, but he promised The Dingo that he would try.
The day of the contest arrived and they both discovered that the rumors were true: Kitty Kitterton’s pumpkin was ginormous! She definitely deserved to win first place and the judges thought so, too. After the ribbons were awarded, to The Dingo’s surprise, little Max walked over to Kitty Kitterton and congratulated her on a job well done. In turn, she congratulated him as well on his beautiful pumpkin and even offered to give him some pointers for next year’s contest and he graciously accepted the offer.
The Dingo smiled, glad to see little Max rising above and not letting jealousy ruin a wonderful moment and embracing an opportunity to grow in character. As he told Max before on several occasions: “We should purpose ourselves to always walk in love, never stop growing in wisdom & continue to work towards being a better person today than we were yesterday.”
Yvonne C. Lozano 