History tells us that the son of a comptroller made the world change its view on greed. From terrible, evil, and sinister to be seen as something good for progress (capitalism). Today the father of this speculative blog has the mission to change the perception of envy into a good phenomenon for humans.
My humble experimentations lead me to conclude that there is a way we can use envy in our favor.
There is a four ingredient recipe I use to transform envy into fuel for personal growth.
I’m aware it may sound ambitious, or fairly unattainable given the fact that the implicit association with envy is negative, not bueno. It is also a tricky problem to attack owing to the elusiveness of this emotion.
Is It Really That Bad?
Before judging, we need to understand how envy works. Envy stems from comparison. We compare the attention or recognition we receive with our peers. Envy can manifest out of other people’s success, making us feel oddly uncomfortable.
This is when it gets elusively complicated. This emotion is not pleasant, to admit our apparent inferiority hurts our ego. In consequence, this emotion is quickly disguised with seamless excuses.
Let us think about some common triggers of envy. Picture someone you know who just received a promotion at work that you wanted, or someone who bought a new house, or traveled to an exotic destination you always dreamed of.
Just by imagining this situation, there is likely a certain discomfort in our body, something that tells us “I deserve that, not her”. So far, it seems there is no salvation against envy. Nevertheless, opportunities arise from understanding such complexities.
First of all, a sensation in our body: that’s what envy is and how we detect it. Second, once captured, there is an opportunity to act on it . In war, there is not much we can do when we don’t know who the enemy is nor where they are located.
Therefore, as long as we are aware of this emotion we can acquire social intelligence. This is a superpower to detect possible toxic relationships, to examine ourselves in moments of discomfort, and to funnel this energy into something productive.
I ask again, is envy really that bad? It is bad if you want to suffer from poisonous emotion. With awareness as our sidekick I say it is absolutely not bad. Now, let’s cook.
Four Ingredients Of Transformation
There are two sides to this story. The one with us feeling envious; and the one with others feeling envious toward us, possibly causing them to attack. Today we focus on the former and learn to mitigate this somewhat awkward feeling.
1. Attention
In other words, acknowledgement. Acceptance is the first step to travel an inward journey of transformation towards positive change.
As I mentioned earlier, envy is an elusive emotion. We are wired to disguise it as soon as we feel it. A diligent observation of our emotions helps us detect the initial stab of pain when we envy someone.
This awareness won’t make envy disappear. It should never disappear. The purpose is not avoiding this feeling, it’s just reckoning the impact it has on us. Observe it, with curiosity, to learn when it arises.
Consider situations that commonly trigger envy. Take the opportunity to pay attention to your bodily emotions. Where does it contract? Where does the temperature rise? Hint: take a look at your stomach and neck.
- Hierarchy: someone receives a promotion we think we deserved.
- Fame: someone is growing her fans on social media, music, any kind of entertainment endeavor.
- Attention: friends, family or loved ones are not giving you as much attention as you think you deserve. To whom are they giving it?
- Success: someone is achieving goals while you perceive the outcome a matter of chance.
2. Trait Identification
With conscious practice you will get good at detecting envy in your body. The next step is to dive deep into it.
If we approach this problem from a segmented angle, we will be able to discern the core of the issue, helping us disarm it efficiently. Straight to the apple’s heart where the worm lays asleep.
In other words, we don’t envy people, we envy a trait or feature we wish we possesed. This is how we should approach it.
Some decent way to phrase this out would be:
- I like her voluminous hair; I’d like to have a hair like that.
- He has formidable acting skills; I wish I could act like that.
- She runs so fast; if I only could have stronger legs.
3. Envy Disarming
How do you fight back against uncomfortable emotions? I have read about many different methods to do this. My favorite, by far, is applying a counter emotion.
Compassion arises from understanding suffering. Suffering is like mud, compassion is like lotus, and you need the mud to grow the lotus. So understand the suffering, and allow that understanding to turn into compassion. When compassion suffuses the mind, suffering naturally weakens, and sometimes fades away.
– Chade-Meng Tan
In my practice, using compassion comes handy, as a counter emotion to disarm possible discomforting feelings. One of my favorites, my nerdy pal Chade-Meng Tan, delightfully breaks this down for us with his work Joy on Demand, chapter six.
How do you do that? Put yourself into the other person’s shoes. This time, not from a success standpoint but with an eye toward their problems – yeah, let’s take out the dirty laundry.
Try to picture a day in her life. Try to picture all the burdens she has to fight against. This other person must definitely be worried about some things, maybe an illness, a troublesome divorce process, anything.
Now, do you really want to be this person? Do you really want to carry all those problems with you? Is there actually a way to help this person instead? Not everything that shines is gold. Don’t let the brightness fool you.
You can also flip the table and admire this person’s trait. It doesn’t leave much room for your consciousness to perceive that success as something hurtful to you.
4. Transform Envy Into Fuel For Achievement
This is where you grow. Once you achieve this step, you will have another source of positive energy at your disposal.
You know the trait you admire. You disarmed your envy. Now the road in front of you is clear to turn this to your advantage. Focus all this towards an actionable plan.
Do you admire his acting skills? Study acting, and get better at it. Do you admire her running skills? Educate yourself, train harder, visualize the strong legs that you desire.
Next step – How To Deal With Envious People
It is true that now we have this hack to change the way we perceive and process envy to our favor. But what if we are attacked by envious people? There can be occasions when we cannot control the effects of our apparent outward success.
As we know, our success can trigger toxic emotions in other people. Maybe you just learned how to read thirty books in a year, that might create resentment in some people when you happily share your accomplishment – believe me!
How do we protect ourselves from such attacks? Enter Robert Greene, one of the finest writers on Human Nature I’ve read. He is widely authorized to endow us with precepts on this topic. I found his way of dealing with envious people utterly useful, from his book The Laws of Human Nature. If you pick it up, go to chapter 10, devour it.
His work about human nature is exquisite, explaining why humans behave the way we do from different takes and emotions. He describes how to detect envier types, and more importantly, how to diplomatically avoid them without getting hurt in the process. Savor the final dressing for protecting yourself from malicious attacks.
That would wrap up the envy cycle, as well as this article. Farewell.