It says in the bible, “Anger is cruel, wrath is like a flood, but envy is more dangerous.” (Proverbs 27:4 NLT)
Why is that? Why is envy more dangerous than anger and wrath? The answer is simple. Envy is more painful to experience than the latter emotions. In fact, it’s the most painful of all human emotions.
Envy makes you loathe yourself. You feel hopelessly inadequate and inferior. Nothing brings more torment and wounds your ego more than envy.
And hurt people hurt people. And since envy brings the worst pain to your psyche, you consider those who make you feel envious as your mortal enemies. In fact, you’re more vengeful towards those who you feel envious than those who’ve caused you legitimate grievances.
People have been known to use every available means to hurt those whom they envy, including doing unconscionable things.
Envy-based hostilities range from small discourtesies, like being dismissive of someone, to monstrous acts like genocide and mob violence.
Envy was the main driving force behind countless murders, arsons, vandalisms, mob outbursts and even genocides.
Before we delve into how to manage envy and turn it into something useful, let’s first go through how people typically manage this emotion.
Most people would rather deal with what triggers their envy than what’s really causing the envy: what’s at the root. They’d rather diminish others or drive others out than manage their own ego.
Dumbing Down Others
There is a Japanese saying, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down.” Envious people hammer down those individuals or groups who have enviable qualities. They try to rid themselves of envious feelings by forcing others around them to dumb down.
This is done through persistent harassment, weaponizing friendship, demonizing, gossiping, spreading lies, ostracizing, and scapegoating, excluding, and using every other means. They use every trick in the book to get others to diminish themselves and put their light under a bushel.
It’s like a drowning person holding on to anything solid he can find to not drown. That’s what envious people do when they’re made to feel insecure by someone’s qualities or achievements.
One interesting example of this is women in Islamic countries who are happily compliant with (and sometimes are strict enforcers of) wearing a hijab or a burka.
Now I’m sure there are many women in those countries who enforce this rule out of genuine commitment to Islam. But for many other women, it’s not their passionate devotion to the religion that makes them wear these covering cloths and passionately demand that other women do so as well.
The real reason is that these cloths and garments give the ugly woman a sense of equality with the pretty woman as the appearance of both is unexposed to the world, or not as exposed as it would have been if they both didn’t have to wear these garments.
It’s similar to how many women in western countries continue to wear masks even though the COVID mandate is long over. Here again, there are many women who wear masks out of genuine concern for public health and safety.
But like the hijab, the mask helps unattractive women hide their faces and therefore puts them in equal footing with beautiful women. A lot of these women not only wear masks routinely, but they put pressure on the women around them to wear masks also, especially on the attractive ones.
So in a way, the COVID mask mandate which normalized wearing masks regularly has been a boon for many western women, just like the hijab has been a boon to many women in the middle east.
Once the object of your envy dumbs themselves down and is no longer a threat to your ego, you start to soften up to them. You’ve manipulated them into being mediocre.
Driving out others
When we fail to dumb down others, the next option is to drive them out.
This explains why the Jews have been expelled from many places in the past.
These people have been expelled from ancient Rome, Spain, Russia, England, France, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal… and pretty much from every place they’ve lived.
In fact, the Nazis just wanted to expel the Jews initially. It was only after no other country was willing to take the Jews did the Nazis decide to exterminate them by the millions.
The Asians that were expelled from Uganda and other African countries post independence are another example of this.
Why the need to expel? Envy seems to be a good explanation to this. Jews for example, have long been known to be more prosperous than the rest of the population, even when they had very modest beginnings. And the people they lived amongst don’t like this. It was the same story with Asians in Africa.
It’s also why the countries surrounding Israel today want to wipe the Jewish state off the map. The Israelis are advancing and modernizing at such an incredible rate that they’re given the name The Start-Up Nation. This is a source of embarrassment to the stagnating countries in that region, countries with much more natural resources available to them, including oil.
People like to kill their ideals as we can see from the story of Abel and Cain’s in Genesis. The general human tendency is to bring others down to mediocrity or to get rid of them entirely.
In both dumbing down and driving out others, you’re selfishly compensating for your insecurities. And you’re reinforcing your slavish dependence to your ego. And the ego is the root of all the evil you see around you.
But if you manage the envy within you and transmute it into something useful, you’ll be making this world a better place. Because you won’t have the need to tear others down and to make them suffer in order to soothe your wounded ego. You’ll be a light in the world instead of part of the darkness.
How to Deal with Envy the Proper Way
I suggest two ways.
Turn Envy into Inspiration
The alternative of tearing down others is building yourself up.
That way, you can turn a highly destructive force into a constructive one.
When you see people living their best lives and making the most out of their potential, that should serve as an inspiration. It’s not supposed to be a source of resentment like it is for most people.
When life brings these people into your life, it’s calling you to become the best version of yourself.
You’re not meant to be EXACTLY like them because everyone is different. Comparing yourself to others is more absurd than comparing apples and oranges. No two blades of grass are the same. But you can be inspired by them to be the best version of yourself.
I remember watching a video of 2 physicians on YouTube. I remember having this feeling envious and inferior towards them. But then I asked myself what exactly made me feel inferior.
There were two things. First, they both looked physically fit and I was overweight. And second, because they were doctors, they have higher demand in the marketplace than I do and can earn a high salary. It turns out, it was these two things that made me feel hopelessly inferior and sent my ego into turmoil.
I had 2 choices at that moment. I can either tear down these two physicians (by leaving nasty comments or whatnot), or I could learn from them. I could be more physically fit by developing better health habits. And I can be a skilled professional like they are within a field that matches my talents and interests.
I don’t have to be a doctor because I’m not into science. But I can increase my value in the marketplace by specializing in a different area.
All of us are faced with the choice of tearing others down or building ourselves up when dealing with people who are objectively better than us in a certain area.
It’s not just individuals who can advance by turning envy into inspiration, it’s also groups and nations, as 19th century Japan has shown.
The Japanese were a backward people prior to the 19th century. After the Perry expedition ended their isolationism, the Japanese began learning from the west at such a frantic rate. This effort to advance didn’t always go smoothly for the Japanese as they allied with the Axis powers in WW2. During this period, they resorted to the common human tendency of tearing down the object of their envy.
But after losing the war, they continued learning and adapting from the west and especially the United States. They eventually surpassed the west in many respects, such as in technology and in management systems. In essence, they turned their envy into a fuel to bring themselves to the forefront of civilization.
Now contrast that with Islamic Jihadists who destroy buildings and commit terrorism to overcome their envy. They’re motivated by the same envy as the Japanese were. But they chose to tear down west – destroying the twin towers – rather than learning from the west.
And this approach hasn’t improved their situation one bit. Now contrast that to the Japanese who followed the opposite approach. Same motivation, different outcomes.
Kill Your Ego
Your ego is the root cause of all your insecurities. It’s also the root cause of all the evil you see in the world.
When you’re feeling envious, that’s the ego talking – or more accurately, panicking.
But that’s a good thing! You’re being presented with an opportunity to thin out the ego.
How do you do that? When you feel envious, don’t react based on that feeling. Instead, relax through it.
It will be challenging the first few times. But you’ll get better at it, as you would with anything else in life.
If you relax through feelings of envy, you’ll find overtime that those feelings will have less and less control over you. You can experience them without getting lost in them.
And this process helps you expand your comfort zone and evolve spiritually. As one Indian sage put it, “Man minus mind equals God.”
To learn more on this, I highly recommend reading The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer.
To summarize, envy can either be a constructive or destructive force depending on how you deal with it. Most people deal with this emotion by diminishing or driving out the object of their envy. But the higher and more productive way is to turn envy into an inspiration and to use it as an opportunity to get rid of your ego and grow spiritually.
