According to writer Harold Coffin, "Envy is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings instead of your own."
Take a moment to sit down and really think about this one. How do you react when your friend/colleague/neighbor has bought a new car/been promoted/upgraded his kitchen? My guess is that there’s always a little bit of envy, tinged with a slight dose of jealousy. Both are strong emotions that come to us when we least expect it but are not hard to control. Rather than try and fight them, it may be easier if we understood why we feel the way we sometimes do.
Envy and jealousy are two related emotions, but they are not one and the same. Envy is the human tendency to evaluate one's well-being comparatively by assessing how well one is doing in comparison with others. Jealousy can be defined as an emotion that refers to negative thoughts of insecurity, fear and anxiety, when you anticipate the loss of something you hold dear. Jealously then differs from envy in that it involves owning something (or someone) which you are fearful of losing, while envy is about not having something and wanting it.
Envy is an age old emotion, with religion, political and social connotations. It is also one of the seven deadly sins, has had numerous epics being written about it and even philosophers like Aristotle have spoken about it (in his Rhetoric, chapter 10 as being, "pain at the good fortune of others").
If you give into your envy, it’s like a black hole or hungry mouth which will demand more and more until you have nothing left to give. Then self-pity and depression take over. Why do they have the better house? Why did he get the promotion and a new car that goes with it? Why is she so successful at her business when I work as hard as she does?
But the question that you have to ask yourself is; do I really? Do I really work as hard as she does? Do I really deserve that promotion over him? Do I really make the money that will afford me a new car? And if you look deep inside you, you will see that the answer probably is no. However, an answer in the negative does not mean you give up all hope. In fact, jealously and envy can be turned around into something truly positive. If you truly want something, think of how you can achieve it. That car, house and promotion are all very possible outcomes you can achieve. You just have to believe it with all your heart and then create a plan of action to map out your end goals and the steps you need to take along the way to meeting them.
This then means that is does not matter if you feel envy. Instead, it’s how you handle this feeling that’s important. Wallow in self pity, and your envy will grow till it takes control over you and your actions. On the other hand, take control of your envy at the outset; put it to positive use, and you’ll only benefit from it.
