What is this feeling that we call envy? Why do we feel like we need to own something beyond our means, and we get jealous to no extent. Does it stem from our childhood, when we would vie for our parent’s attention? Or does it stem from the current culture of work-life imbalance, where we strive to attain our boss’s attention? What you might call it, it definitely underscores the state of mind of our society.
Envy comes from expectations that our desires will always be fulfilled.
We want to buy-buy-buy and we want bigger and better for ourselves, not knowing that in the end – the journey counts more than the destination. There is no other reason to bring about change in your mind, other than the discomfort of the mind. When envy gives discomfort, that’s the first step towards change. When we do change, we make great things happen with our free time.
While envy is a complex result of our state of mind, it has a very simple rationality in nature. When we are focused on survival, we focus on the things we lack and the things that are available in nature. When we spot someone from the same tribe as us with better fruit or better jewels, we want to know where she got them from. Now our discomfort comes from the fact that the other person, WILL NOT tell us where she got those jewels from or WILL NOT SHARE those pleasures with us. That feeling gives us discomfort. If and when our society opens up to sharing and caring, envy fades away as a natural result of a loving culture.
Love is the ultimate reason why people feel free, and envy binds you within yourself. When envy is shared with others, it becomes gossip. When gossip is mishandled it becomes hatred. Thus love thy neighbour makes sense increasingly in 2015.
But heres the catch. Why did God create envy in the first place? When everyone that feels envy asks this question first, then you realise that God has created a lot of things that you didn’t ask for. God gave you jealousy, hatred, anger, and frustration. Why? Well, the real question is not why He gave us these things. The real question is “why do we stick to these emotions, when we didn’t even ask to be give them”. Nobody asks God for envy, we were simply born and brought up with. So why stress about it, when feel it?
No reason to hide your envy if you are envious, make fun of it instead. Share in the silliness of envy. When we are all more open about the fact that we all feel envy, we truly attain freedom from it.
Reference: www.reddit.com
