3448: Envy by Keith Wilson on Self-Awareness, Gratitude, and a Focus on Personal Growth

This is Optimal Living Daily, Envy by Keith Wilson of Keithwilsencounseling.com and I'm your narrator, Justin Molick. Now let's get right to our next article as we optimize your life. Envy by Keith Wilson of Keithwilsencounseling.com

Envy is not a rare feeling, but it's a rarely acknowledged one. No one likes to admit they're envious. Instead, they'll call it some other feeling. Anger, injustice, resentment, sadness, hurt, puzzled, lonely, bored, more jealous, among others. But if you've ever been unhappy that someone had something you don't, you were envious, admitted.

Anger and injustice are mistaken for envy when you say it's not right others have something you don't have. When you nurture that anger, you mistake it for resentment. You call it sadness if you feel down about it, hurts if it pains you, and puzzled if you don't understand why. You'll say you're lonely or bored when you wish you had someone or something to do.

At the core of all these feelings is envy. If you want to understand these feelings, you must call it for what it is, envy. Jealousy is different from envy, although the two words are often used synonymously. When you possess something and are concerned with losing it to arrival,

That's jealousy. Envy is when you don't possess something and don't want anyone else to have it either. You're jealous when your girlfriend wants another man. If you want another man's girlfriend, that's envy. Envy is also different from admiration or a desire to emulate. With envy, you want to punish the person who has what you want.

With emulation, you don't begrudge success. You're inspired by it. We see envy in the man compelled to keep up with the Joneses and the woman who can't be happy that her friend is pregnant because she wants to be. It drives a large part of our economy. It energizes politics. It wrecks far too many friendships. It's envy's fault when you can't enjoy vacation photos on Instagram without wishing you were there.

It's the reason no matter how well you do, you can't be happy if you aren't doing better than everyone else. Envy alerts you to the presence of inequity. It tells you when things aren't fair, when your ideas about justice are violated. You feel envy because you believe you should have an equal right to anything you want because you're just as good and deserving as the next person.

Envy appears to promote egalitarianism. Unfortunately, you only feel envy when you're on the bottom looking up. When you're at the top and actually have power to correct inequities, envy is nowhere to be found. You could argue that envy serves a useful purpose in motivating you to succeed. And see if that's true. Examine your reaction after you've completed a video game. How do you feel looking at the leaderboard?

Interest, awe, and admiration? What do you hate the names listed there? Can you review your performance and see how you could have done better? Were you more focused on how the game was rigged? Could you sincerely shake the champion's hand or do you want to maim him so he can't play anymore? Envy is a potent cause of unhappiness, of the seven deadly sins Envy, gluttony, greed, lust, pride, sloth, and wrath

It's the only one that's no fun at all. Not only are you made unhappy by your envy, but you wish to inflict misfortune on others. If you're not going to feel good, no one else can either. I really began to know envy after I published my first book. I must be careful every time I get a royalty check not to compare it with the checks I imagine others get.

If I let myself linger in those thoughts, I'd resent other success and forget my own and start to rail against all the advantages they had. I'd mistake their failure for my success. If someone asks me for writing advice, I'd be suspicious and competitive. I'd write nasty reviews and never be able to give deserved praise. That's why I never looked at bestseller rankings. It'd be like putting my head in a hungry lion's mouth. I'd be devoured by envy.

Envy feeds off objective data, but it's anything but objective. It has a skewed perception on how to achieve happiness. Getting the car your neighbor has, having a baby, showing off an achievement, going on vacation, or making the best seller list will not repeat.

Not make you, me, or anyone happy for more than a day or two. Learning to accept things you cannot change will. You might try to blame other people for your envy. You complain about friends posting vacation pictures online. They're boasting, you say, flaunting it in your face. That's another thing envy does. It lies when it says everything is about you. It's not about you.

Your friends didn't post their vacation photos to make you feel inferior, they're trying to share their experience. When you feel envy, you do it entirely on your own. You're not obligated to feel inferior, you're only expected to look at the pictures and like them if you thought they were nice. What advice do I have for the envious?

I generally urge you to lean into feelings. Go ahead and feel them, I usually say. It's easier and more illuminating that way. Most feelings have a positive purpose, and when you close yourself up from them, you forsake a good thing. Envy is not like that.

Don't go there. I've been down that road and it ain't pretty. I can tell you in great detail that some people with connections and fancy Ivy League diplomas and thousands of Twitter followers will publish more books than those of us without, and it doesn't mean their books are any better. Good for them. Their success doesn't harm me. Dwelling on it changes nothing. In his vision of purgatory, Dante had the envious ridding themselves of envy by having their eyes sewn shut.

while they listen to stories of generosity. Maybe that's what we should do. Blind yourself to the advantages of others, focus on what you do have, the privileges you enjoy that others may wish they had, the reasons others may be envious of you. But don't stop there. Be charitable. Even if you think you have nothing, try sharing what you have. Not a patronizing way that humiliates the recipients, but in an unassuming way for your own sake.

envy has been trying to tell you that you value justice. Therefore, promote justice, not when you are powerless and consumed by envy, but when you have the power to do so.

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Thank you, Keith. You know, I thought this was really interesting, especially the part where he explained the difference between jealousy and envy. I'd honestly never thought about it that way before that jealousy is when you're worried about losing something you have, but envy is wanting something someone else has. I was just used those words kind of interchangeably.

I got me thinking about my own life, like when I compare podcast chats with other shows, that's definitely envy, not jealousy, because I'm wanting what they have. But when I worry about losing listeners to other shows, I guess that would be more like jealousy. It's a subtle difference, but an important one, I think.

And comparing listens to other shows, worrying about rankings, like he said, it really doesn't lead anywhere good. It's funny when I first started this podcast in 2015, I was just happy to have anyone listening. But then as it grew, it became easier to focus on what other podcasts were doing or how they were growing faster.

And that's that trap of envy that he's talking about, can really steal the joy from what we've already accomplished. So maybe today we can try to catch ourselves when we're feeling envious, not jealous, or both. And remember that other people's success doesn't take anything away from us. Me easier said than done, I know, but definitely worth working on. And with that, have a great weekend. Thank you for being here, and I'll see you tomorrow, where you're optimal life. I'll wait.