Episode 22 - Envy : Challenging contentment by comparison

Letters to my kids: A suicide survivor's lessons and advice for life

Envy - Challenging contentment by comparison

Music: “Just A Blip” by Andy G. Cohen From the Free Music Archive Released under a Creative Commons Attribution International License

Am I really falling behind? Is anybody actually keeping score? Did any of these people post any of the updates with the intent of making me feel bad? Of course not.

A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck.

"Envy is the art of counting another's blessings instead of your own" - Harold Coffin

Envy is a secretly held emotion.

If you are envious of someone it's unlikely that you will admit it to anyone, except perhaps to someone who might also be envious of that other person and will participate with you in denigrating them.

Talk about growing up and friends buying handphone.

"Do not overrate what you have received nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind" - Gautama Buddha

Envy has to do with feeling unhappy about the success of someone else, or about what they have and, at the same time, secretly feeling inferior yourself. If you are envious of someone you may want to put them down, as though this will raise you up or lower everyone else's opinion of them.

Envy has many manifestations. For example, it is possible to mistake attraction to another person for what is actually your envy of them. The hostility that you might experience with envy of a competitor is missing in this instance because the expectation is that you will get the envied attribute by association.

How do we respond when we encounter people who are more successful than we are? Often, we imagine two paths: admiration and envy. Admiration is seen as a noble sentiment—we admire people for admiring others, detecting, in their admiration, a suggestion of taste and humility.

"Envy is a gun with a faulty breech-lock which flares back and burns the gunner" - Austin O'Malley

Don’t compare your insides to someone else’s outsides.

You have no idea what it took for them to get there. Don’t act like this was unearned, effortless, or pure dumb luck. Because it’s much easier to look at someone “up there” and envy what they’ve got than it is to ask the tougher questions:

When we reflect on these questions, we shift immediately out of comparison mode and turn inwards, to face the heart of the matter: our own desires and fears.

Talk about envy about other families that had "stable" and great family relationships with parents.

Transform comparison into celebration

Admiration and envy are responses that point us toward what we value most. And when we become aware of what we value, we are much better positioned to create a life that’s richly satisfying.

"Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts" - Jean Vanier