Can envy makes you a better person?
When you realize that your envy is actually admiration it helps you improve your own path
This is the story of how I managed to transform a bad relationship into a friendship, all because I understood that I was envious and managed to transform it into admiration.
It all started one afternoon in therapy, I spent it talking about him. Oh he always yells at me, he’s bad and he doesn’t deserve that job. I deserve it! I keep saying things about him until my therapist cuts me off and says, Do you think this annoyance could just be envy?
Envy?
At that moment I stopped feeling like talking about him. Now I felt ashamed, like when someone discovers a secret of yours. Ok, maybe I did feel a little envy. And that was the first step to detect a whole thread that allowed me to get rid of the discomfort that I created myself.
So I will tell you how my process was to use envy in my favor. Perhaps you will discover that this annoyance that someone generates in you is secret admiration.
The definition of envy
Envy is a feeling or state of mind in which there is an annoyance at not possessing what someone else has. Applies to: assets, qualities, and even status. Unlike admiration, envy presents a feeling of hostility.
We experience envy since we’re babies when you started to define yourself with the things that you have. It serves to indicate us a desire or need to be fulfilled, of which we learn until we see ourselves projected onto others.
But envy comes into the range of undesirable feelings, which our society teaches us to ignore. Others can feel them, not me because I am special.
Since childhood, we are taught that feeling envy “is wrong.” A “good person” should not feel bad about the joys of others, because the main objective is to be a good person. Then you grow up denying envy.
How to recognize envy
The human body is wise and is always looking for a way to express the feelings inside it. The same goes for envy. If you don’t recognize it, it will come out on its own.
Malicious gossip is perhaps the most common way. It does not mean that whenever we meet to gossip it is motivated by envy, in fact, gossip is a very common form of socialization among humans since ancient times (it is said that the pleasure of gossiping led us to evolve our way of communication, the reason that led us to be the dominant species in the food chain) but that’s another story.
Has it happened to you that you are in a gossip session and you can’t stop talking bad about a person? Do you feel pleasure when you speak ill of a particular person in these gossip sessions? There you have it, pure envy.
Other ways it can manifest is: being annoyed by another’s accomplishments, hostile behavior against someone for no apparent reason, or secretly demeaning that person’s abilities. The way of manifesting depends on each one.
What happens when I insist on not recognizing my own envy?
Bad idea. As you will remember, envy brings with it a feeling of hostility. This feeling stays with you, evolves, and grows bigger, either against the person who makes you envy or against yourself. Living upset is a way to waste your energy without any benefit. Recognizing that you are envious is important to you if you want to grow as a person.
But even if you don’t aim to be a better person, the feeling of hostility created by envy of another person can turn into hatred. Think of all the possible crimes that have been committed stemming from hatred, the same that could be avoided just by recognizing envy in time.
So, the first step to get envy out of your body is simple: accept it. You are an envious person, because you are a human being, with all the feelings that a person is capable of feeling throughout his life.
Transmute the feeling of envy into admiration
Something amazing about human beings is our ability to transform everything around us, including the feelings we experience. As I said before, envy is nothing more than admiration loaded with a slight touch of hostility. Or maybe a huge amount, it all depends on how long you have been keeping that feeling.
In algebraic terms, the only thing you need to turn envy into admiration is a subtraction. Take hatred out of the equation and voila. A trick that helped me was to understand that hate is in the same category as love, only on the opposite side. Hate is the polarity contrary to love. Start thinking that you admire that person and little by little you will begin to realize that maybe that person and you have more in common than you had imagined.
In some cases, accepting that you admire the person you envy may help you learn a skill you want for yourself. For example, if someone who dances very well gives you a feeling of envy, accepting that you admire them will make it easier for you to ask that person to teach you how to dance, instead of spending time secretly mocking their “quirky steps in the dance floor, lol ”.
So let’s recap how to transmute envy into admiration.
- Understand that envy is nothing more than admiration mixed with anger.
- We have been taught for so many years to reject our own envy, that it is very difficult to recognize it. The first step: accept that you can feel envy.
- With a little love, envy can be transmuted into a more beneficial feeling for you: admiration.
I know that transforming hate into love is a difficult process, but not impossible. If you feel that it is very complicated, remember that the person who awakens hostile feelings in you has something in common with you stronger than any feeling of envy, annoyance, or bitterness: he is also human.
