Everyone knows that feeling, it comes up, when your colleague at the office gets an appreciation for something in which you probably are better. It comes up, when your best friend suceeds runs the marathon much faster than you did it (and he just took half time training to make it). It comes up, when your biggest rival performs better on the market than you do with your company. Envy is strong and mean. Once, you are satisfied with what you are and what you do, someone all of a sudden comes up and brings your performance into a context, which automatically makes a ranking. And it’s not you on number one. Even if you are number one in something, of course you worked hard to get there, you will envy the one on number 4, who came into the ranking from 0 to the top 10 with probably less efforts than you did. You can do whatever you want: Envy is strong and makes you suffer, no matter if you are already on top or still climbing up a ladder. Envy is mean, because it drafts your power and your thoughts. And it makes very gentle people also mean. So here is my trick to overcome envy.
Envy is based on competition and comparisson. It’s hardly impossible not to compare yourself with others. Comparing me with the the guy before my wife met me. Comparing the development of my baby with others (some can walk with 9 months! And others takes double the time to get on feet).
So comparing makes us crazy, and we cannot stop doing it. That’s why figures are so vicious, because they make everything comparable (months, sqms, euros and so on).
If you cannot stop comparing the size of your car with the one of your ugly neighbor, if you can not stop comparing your wage with the one of your lazy colleague, if you cannot stop comparing your marks with the one of your stupid fellow student, then keep on comparing! But …
here is the trick: Support your ugly neighbor to get a bigger car, help your lazy colleague to get a bigger wage, make your stupid fellow student get better marks. Help the people you envy. But make it from the bottom of your heart, and let them know, who helped them. You will see: You probably won’t be number one or the winner in the game anymore. But you will lose envy. Because now the success of your envied persons are also yours.