I WAS the first one in my school to get my story published in a popular children’s magazine, but after that my world became totally different. My English teacher always expected the best from me and gave me more importance.

It felt great but at the same time it felt terrible, just as my elders became happy with me, every child in the school was jealous of me and my friends faded away from me slowly. I couldn’t figure why they were jealous. Shouldn’t they be happy and cheering with their friend’s achievement? I tried to understand the reason behind the jealousy, but I was clueless.

One day, in the school library, the silence was broken by these words, “Oh my God! I can’t believe it!” Sabrina was holding the latest issue of the children’s magazine in her hands and showing something in it to her friends. Their jaws dropped open as they looked at the magazine.

Confused, I asked one of my classmates about why those girls were cheering and almost shouting. Even our strict library teacher, who was supposed to be stopping the girls, was happy.

“Don’t you know Sabrina’s story got published in the magazine?” said one of my classmates.

I got confused, everyone was congratulating her on her success. At home, I thought it must be a trick of hers, she may have used the name Sabrina Ahmed of any other writer and fooled others into believing it was hers. No matter how I tried to convince myself, I knew I had to accept it, accept that her story did get published, that I was not the only one who had a reason to be proud. I thought she would also face jealousy like I did, but that didn’t happen.

I saw everyone admiring Sabrina. A few days later, I saw her at lunch break. She was surrounded by a number of girls while I was sitting alone quietly. Something new came over me — jealousy. I hated how she seemed over-confident and I realised why everyone was jealous of me.

The same day, Sabrina came to me smiling. She had something in her hand and she gave it to me. It was a beautifully decorated handmade ‘Thank you’ card, which must have taken hours to make.

“What’s this?” I asked Sabrina hastily.

“It’s a card,” she answered

“Yes, I know that, but a card for what? Your story? I didn’t even congratulate you!” I asked her looking at the alluring card, confused.

“Actually…,” she sat next to me and said, “It is a ‘Thank you’ card, you see when your story got published in the magazine I looked at your face and tried to put myself in your place, experience your happiness, your joy. I wanted to feel all of it, and you … you inspired me really, that day, I started to write to be like you. You inspired me to follow my dream and I realised that nothing is impossible if you try hard enough, because impossible contains the words ‘I’m possible’.”

Just by listening to her, tears of joy filled my eyes as I hugged Sabrina and congratulated her on her success.

“Thank you!” she whispered.

And then I realised that jealousy is a phase that we experience but regret afterwards. Instead of being jealous, if we believe in ourselves, we can be an inspiration to the world, so be an inspiration.