Envy

Envy is powerful. It seems beyond our control, and is not easy to anticipate. All of the sudden we have an experience that makes us feel angry, guilty, resentful, regretful, inadequate, and depressed. This can happen in an instant. If gone unexamined it can start a series of thoughts and actions that can lead to prolonged angst and suffering.

When my envy node is ticked on it can quickly tip the scales of balance in my life. It happens less frequently than it uses to I suppose. Perhaps that can be attributed to finding more security as one works and gets older. But it still happens frequently enough that it can have a negative impact. Before I had the wherewithal to examine these feelings I allowed them to fully capture me. They’d take me wherever they wanted to go. I don’t think of myself as a materialistic person or one that chases wealth for the sake of wealth. However I would find myself in dark downward spirals caused by my jealousy of another person.

Left unexamined I’d float that downward funnel of envy to wherever it would take me. Initially I’d say terrible things to myself. Why don’t you work harder? Is this really the best you can do? You aren’t smart enough. You aren’t good enough. Those being the polite ways of conveying what I’d say to myself. I at least had the capacity to not blame the person I was envious of. They were doing it right and I was doing it wrong. It was no fault of their own.

Once examined though I was able to bring the reality of the situation into clearer focus. There is a philosophy about envy that states that it is actually a feeling of the utmost utility. Knowing exactly what you want can be challenging, but that feeling of envy comes from somewhere deep at our core. If we can rationally, and without angst, examine that feeling of envy then it can actually be a tool to point us in the direction in which we should be traveling.

Having been a bit nomadic in my 20s and 30s I forwent the normal foundation building that many people do during that time – grow their careers, start families, buy a home, etc. It was more valuable to me at the time to do some exploring. Once my itch to explore was sufficiently scratched I returned home to find myself playing catch-up to my peers.

At first this feeling of envy was misinterpreted as guilt and regret. I felt that I had cheated myself by having misaligned values as an early adult. I misappropriated those envious feelings to the ‘things’ people had. Once examined and scrutinized I realized that what I was envious of was the sense of ease that comes from being settled and secure. I’d lived for so long with the goal of staying untethered to anyone or anything so I’d be able to follow adventure should the opportunity arise. Longing for a life of certainty was foreign and took some getting used to.

With every action that we take in this modern world we are choosing not to partake in thousands of other activities. Everything is a trade-off and there are advertisements on every screen and colorful piece of paper reminding you of what you’re missing out on. Being content with the person you are, the life you are leading, and the things you own is rare, but one of the reasons that it is rare is because we cannot be content in the Western world.

Basically starting from the time that we can have our first coherent thought we are being conditioned by the situation and set of circumstances that we are born into. In the United States, and to a lesser degree the West in general, we are taught that satisfaction comes from without and not from within. It is something that one gets through hard work and the acquisition of goods and property. In the US, that is unfortunately good training for the culture in which you will live.

For in America those are the things that are valued by most adults. Indeed some, if not most, of those adults will also have some type of spiritual practice, but that practice is almost assuredly secondary to the acquisition of money. Money in America is what matters. I don’t say this as a universal truth about money, but about money in America.

If you have money in America then not only does it buy you comfort in whatever good or service your heart desires, but it also gives you agency to live the life you wish. Money in America is agency. If you do not have money then you do not have agency. You are beholden to systems and structures that keep you in a perpetual cycle of earning and spending simply to exist. If you have money and act erratically then you are eccentric and exciting, but if you don’t have money and act erratically then you are deemed a nuisance and problematic.

Envy is a powerful tool for those that wish to keep this machine humming along. Unexamined, envy can result in a total lose of personal control over ones life. We can be dragged along for our entire lifetimes if we aren’t careful. Just spending month after month and year after year chasing something that we’ve never actually stopped to question – ‘does this really serve me?’

Every advert you’ve ever encountered has had the objective of inducing envy in you. Creating in you a desire for something that you otherwise wouldn’t have desired. Creating a ‘need’ as those in the marketing and advertising industries like to say. Indeed there are some cool gadgets on this planet and assuredly there are things that make life easier. Some of those things are worth our attention and dollars. Most of them aren’t.

It took me my full 40 years to even start to unravel that tangled mess of envy that lurks inside me. Examining these feelings has led me to a greater sense of purpose, and has narrowed my areas of focus. When left unexamined that envy brought about horrible feelings of inadequacy, anger, and self-pity. At the core of those envious feelings was a longing for security and ease – not a longing for ‘things’ or more square-footage.

I appreciate your attention and hope you’ve found value in this.
Thanks for reading and take care of each other.