HOW TO AVOID ENVY


Merriam-Webster defines envy as a “painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage.” When we are envious, we hate the fact that someone else is successful or happy. We want to selfishly remove their fortunate circumstances and place them upon our own backs.
Why should we allow ourselves to feel pain when someone we know has a positive experience or obtains something nice? Learning to be truly happy for others when they accomplish something that brings them some measure of happiness or success requires humility, love and gratitude. Each of these principles will allow you to feel a greater measure of satisfaction with not only your successes but for the successes of other. Teaching these principles to your children and everyone around you will help them find greater satisfaction in any circumstance.
Humility
The more experiences you have with people from all over the world, the more you realize all people are the same and that they dont really change or differ from one another. We all have the same basic needs, the same desires and the same hopes. Regardless of education level, religious affiliation, family size, bank account size or even your physical geographical location we should never think we are better than someone else. We are not. A quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson helped me to look at everyone I meet in a different way. He said, “Every man I meet is my superior in some way, in that I learn of him.” As we take this approach to everyone that we come in contact with we will quickly develop within ourselves a spirit of humility. We will also learn valuable life lessons from each person that comes into our life.
Love
When we love someone, we will never envy them. Think about the relationship you have with your children, your spouse. Do you want them to be smarter than you were? More successful? Happier? Loving parents want the best for their children. They want their children to be better off than they were. True friends want the best for those they love. As you learn to love deeper and to be willing to sacrifice the best things for others, envy will fade away and you will look for opportunities to lift and strengthen your family and all those you come into contact with.
Gratitude
Grateful people are happy people regardless of the circumstances that they find themselves in. As you learn and develop the characteristic of gratitude you will discover a greater measure of peace and contentment in your life and in your family. Start by simply making a list of the things that you value, that you are sincerely grateful for. I have heard of some who keep a gratitude journal. Those who engage in the practice of counting their many blessings do not have time to be envious of others.
As we develop humility, we will never seek to aggrandize ourselves above another. We will be happy to see our friends and family members achieve success. Loving others in a way that you desire them to be better off than yourself is admirable. As you give of yourself in the service of others, encouraging them to be successful you will be rewarded with a greater ability to avoid the aches of envy. Recognize the good fortunes in your life and you will no longer need to be pained by the success of another.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HOW THE LIBERIAN GOVERMENT CLEARED THE MAN WHO BROUGHT EBOLA TO NIGERIA

Documents obtained by this newspaper showed that Mr. Sawyer’s employers, ArcelorMittal, an iron mining company, suspended him from work and isolated him after it became aware that he had contact with his sister who died of the virus on July 8. The company also issued an internal memo to staff of the company informing them that Mr. Sawyer had been referred to the Liberian Health ministry for testing and close observation.The Liberian Government was aware that Patrick Sawyer, its citizen who brought the Ebola virus into Nigeria, had possibly contracted the virus from his late sister, yet cleared him to travel to Nigeria for a conference organised by the Economic Community of West African States [ECOWAS], PREMIUM TIMES can authoritatively report today.Documents obtained by this newspaper showed that Mr. Sawyer’s employers, ArcelorMittal, an iron mining company, suspended him from work and isolated him after it became aware that he had contact with his sister who died of the virus on July
Read more

97 years old rapist declared not fit for trial

A 97-YEAR-OLD man, Lionel Veck, accused of raping and indecently assaulting a child is not fit to stand trial, a judge has ruled. Judge Sarah Munro QC has suspended legal proceedings against retired butcher Lionel Veck, from Preston Road, North End, Portsmouth. He had denied one count of rape and two counts of indecently assaulting a woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, between 1972 and 1977 when she was aged under 16. Veck, who was thought to be Britain’s oldest competitive cyclist when he took part in a 10-mile time trial between Havant and Chichester in 2011, was initially found fit to stand trial at a court hearing in September. The decision followed the results of a psychiatric report. But prosecutor Kerry Maylin applied for the proceedings against Veck to be stayed during a brief hearing at Portsmouth Crown Court. The Crown Prosecution Service application was made after a further report assessing Veck’s wellbeing revealed a ‘marked deterioration’ in his mental health. He
Read more

THE ERROR OF A SECOND

Image
We see time as the most valuable commodity that should be duly accounted for.  Some even say a waste of time is a waste of life. For economical reason we plan our time in some kind of time budget. Every seconds of every minutes of every hour of every day of every …(you know the rest) is appropriated living only no time to catch your breathe. In the end so much is achieved with so much at stake. With time you begin to live your dreams alongside its nightmare. You, a man, next most powerful creature to god, now become a slave to the abstract, a slave of TIME. I have seen organized people who have everything meticulously planned but still wail over poverty of time. Some even feel cheated saying God isn’t fair to have made a day only 24 hours and not more. But the question really is, is man the problem or time? Let’s take a look at the smallest unit of time known to us all, the frame of reference of all happenings and happenstances, the second. It takes a man only a second to die. It ta
Read more