It is certainly not my argument, nor implied by the example, that the only reason someone would do something is because of Jealousy or Envy. Things like pleasure and admiration motivate us as well, but most people don't wonder why we have them or wish they would go away.
I hope I didn't imply somehow that there are no other reasons people might do things besides envy or jealousy!
"You haven't actually offered me a better alternative" sounds like a failure on your parents' parts, or a failure of imagination on your 15-year-old-self's part. Which happens fairly often, and is a separate thing about the preferences themselves being irrational. Many people would be happy with a life of leisure and no responsibilities, and the desire for that isn't irrational at all. It's important to be educated about the long-term consequences of it specifically because that's what helps people feel motivated to do something more robust to their future self's preferences.
I'd also note that "didn't want to do schoolwork" is different from "didn't want to go to school at all," which yes has legal consequences that rather drastically changes the outcome.
I cover your definition of jealousy under "Romantic jealousy," though I should specify that it can apply to other things like freindship as well.
As for laziness, I think it is actually often the case that people feel lazy for energy conservation reasons, and I do think that is a separate thing from "lacking motivation to do a thing at all." The energy conservation example was indeed badly phrased, though, I'll edit it :)
Curiosity is definitely an emotion! Did you try the 5 minute exercise on it? :)
Ahhh, you're talking about the memory. Yes, that was the moment of Joy's realization for why Sadness has value. But before her friends/teammates show up to cheer for her, it's her parents that show up to comfort her. I think it's fair to say that her friends showing up to cheer for her probably meant a lot more to Riley than her parents' comfort in that moment, since it was more tied to the specific thing that was making her feel bad, but Joy's out-loud recognition was that Riley's parents showed they cared about her when she was sad, which is the important parallel for the issue in the plot where Riley feels like her parents don't care about her.
Yep, thanks for pointing this out; it often comes up in the class itself if people ask something like "What happens if people don't care if you start crying?" but it's hard to comprehensively address all these sorts of points without making each section two or three times longer.
Was this comment meant to be in reply to me, or the OP? (I agree with these points and think I covered them in my response.)
Ahh, I see. There's a few things here:
1) When allies respond to your sadness with comfort and presence, they're essentially saying "your wellbeing matters to me" and "you still belong here despite this loss." This creates a buffer against secondary psychological harms you alluded to, like isolation, abandonment fears, or spiraling into deeper despair that might come from bad frames where losing the contest means you'll always lose future ones, or wasted all your time practicing, etc. The original loss remains, but you're not facing it alone and it's not extending beyond what actually happened.
2) Even when the specific thing can't be fixed, allies might offer practical support that reduces the overall burden. Some might try covering responsibilities so you can rest, like bringing food or helping with chores so you have fewer stressors and your capacity isn't overwhelmed. This help can range from the direct to the indirect depending on how fungible the loss is; no one would pretend that buying someone a nice dinner would make up for the loss of a wedding ring, or even something much cheaper with heavy emotional significance, but it can still help take some of the sting out, especially if it's something like missing a flight where the financial loss is a more significant fraction of the overall.
3) Seeing others who care about you remain stable and functional despite your loss can itself be reassuring evidence that this setback isn't catastrophic to your broader social world. This may sound like 1, but I think it's actually separate because it doesn't require you to having additional negative beliefs that spiral out from the initial loss, but rather bolsters you more directly in continuing to try hard things or feel less of the sting from loss.
Also as an aside, the hockey ring situation is from Inside Out 2: in the first one Sadness signals to Riley's parents that she is very unhappy and needs a lot more support and attention, which isn't going to make up for e.g. losing her friends, but can help her feel more cared for in all three ways, to some degree.
Ah, yeah, see again my emphasis that I did not name this article "Emotions Are Good" :P
If you pick scenarios where people can find other emotions by which they end up doing the Morally Good and Personally Optimal thing... yeah, envy isn't needed there.
But my claim is there are situations where people are driven by envy to do things that make their liklihood to survive and thrive better than if they had not felt it. If you disagree with that, this is what the article is trying to accomplish as a step 1, and integration happens after that.
But none of that requires "endorsement" in the way you seem(?) to mean it. Envy is not Nice. To put it in another frame, it is MtG: Black, and the value it brings to the table needs to be understood seperately from "is it good/altruistic/endorsed."
Does that make sense?