Shades of Green.

Does the colour green appeal to you? What an inane question to ask, right? Who doesn’t like this vernal, vibrant hue, this captivating, charismatic colour that paints the earth fertile and flourishing!  Being at the center of the colour spectrum, green stands for calmness, balance and harmony. Any passionate traveller would tell you of the awesome and amazing sights that framed their vehicle’s window on innumerable occasions – the vast, verdant fantastic fields, hedges and bushes and trees that ubiquitously unfold as their vehicle whizzed past, leaving them refreshed and revitalized! This gentle, genial, green is so symbolic of life, growth, rebirth, renewal and rejuvenation!  

I remember my car driving instructor thaatha telling me to take a glimpse (especially on long drives) of the green foliage as it would reinvigorate my entire being, putting the zing back into the driving. I, for one, love the colour green and its voluminous variants, my favourite being the tender leaf green.  All said and done, any shade of green, for me, is the queen of serene! And I can literally see you, dear reader, nodding in agreement because we all do love our green, don’t we?

How then did this captivating colour come to be associated with such base qualities as envy and jealousy, is the baffling, big question! To trace its origin, one doesn’t have to look far if one has read Shakespeare. First used in his play, “The Merchant of Venice” as “green-eyed jealousy”, the idiom was later employed by the crafty Iago who warns Othello of jealousy because “It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” Coupling colours with emotions has been in vogue since time immemorial. And green has come to be associated with jealousy/envy. Humans as we are, the green-eyed monster does lurk in us. But what is imperative, is that we keep this nasty, negative emotion in check, or else it can consume us, and, inadvertently, hurt those around us as well. 

For anyone whose focus is the fostering of the uplifting qualities of satisfaction, contentment, appreciation and peace, it can come as a rude shock when you are deliberately inflicted with the painful prick of veiled venom, by one whom you presumed, had, with age, maturity and wisdom, drowned every ounce of the ‘green-eyed monster’, hook, line and sinker! But sad to say, every once in a while, this slimy, shallow fellow pops up and drops a bombshell in the hope that it either kills, or fills you with its poison. 

But let’s not lose hope. All will not be lost if we, every one of us, can, when we hear even the slightest hiss of the GEM (what an irony my abbreviation is!), takes immediate steps to purge it out of our system. Jealousy/envy can make artful, stealthy inroads into our minds and hearts, and if not checked in time, can be the root cause of colossal catastrophe in relationships of every kind, and in every sphere. Being the kind that is born to be appreciative, I believe that if we adapt (or even adopt) to a more appreciative approach to life and not be aspersive, be contented but not complacent, be satisfied without being stagnant, then there is hope for the future. 

I am no psychologist, but having read up on Positive Psychology I have come to know (and therefore, share) of the “two flavours” (Aren Cohen) of envy: the benign and the malicious. While the former can be motivational, the impetus to improve oneself, a fostering of healthy competition; the latter is self-explanatory – spiteful, vindictive, malevolent. I believe that if we endeavour to faithfully factor the former into the fabric of our nature and nurture it, chances are, we, and our succeeding generations, may inherit what is inherent in us. So, help me God to be humble enough to look inward, and work continuously at making the necessary changes for the better; look upward for divine guidance, and then look outward to see how my little life can learn and teach. This move may help in, if not bidding goodbye to the green-eyed monster lurking in us once and for all, at least keep it in check.