Do you envy someone their life?

 

 

 

 

Envy is that uncomfortable feeling you get of discontentment or resentfulness when someone has something you desire. An example might be envying others who do not have to work the weekend.

Envy and jealousy are often interchanged. But jealousy is different from envy. Jealousy is when you are worried someone else is trying to take what you have. If you want your neighbour’s convertible you feel envy. If she takes your husband for a ride, you feel jealousy.

The thing you can be envious of can be a quality a person has, an object they own or anything you don’t have but want. It is different from jealousy as it doesn’t commonly involve feelings of betrayal, anger or rage. As such it is easier for you to manage it.

Personally, I can turn envy into a positive as it can motivate me to take action. Part of the envy can be of the other person being proactive and forward looking enough to achieve what I haven’t. For me, typically this is often about someone proactively marketing themselves and what they can do. As a result, they have more interest in their products and services. I find it really hard to market myself which is totally silly and irrational when I feel I do a good job. Much of this is about overcoming our own biases about ourselves.

However, those who are envied are themselves painfully envious of others. I have come to believe that we are our own worst critic. Even when we achieve something great, we feel we don’t do it as well as someone else.

I observed an example of this in my class on developing dream teacher skills. As teachers we were practising getting a dreamer to tell the story of their dream, identify what they could learn from it and to define some actions on what to do next. A colleague led a dreamer through it beautifully. The richness of the dream was drawn out along with the meaning of it.

The dreamer was so happy with the help and was determined to take follow-up actions. Wow, it was all done so well, full of kindness and compassion. I wanted to clap and shout - Well done!

In a breakout session following this exercise, I was paired with this teacher. She was so critical of herself. She was like another person. Before this, I hadn’t imagined the person I envied feeling so annoyed with themselves. I spent the whole session trying to get her to look at her performance more positively.

This was a real eye opener for me. Many people who look confident and perform well are just as nervous as you and me inside. There is no need to envy them.

All you can ever do is your best.

If you have done your best, you should be pleased with yourself no matter whether it places you first or last. Your personal best is good enough for me.

Try taking a look at what you envy.

Objectively see what you can do to turn that envy into a positive in your life.