Envy Indicates Secret Admirers
Envy is the sixth mortal sin. Placed between anger and vanity. It is a deep anger that a person feels towards someone who has something the person wants, such as wealth, power, beauty or other things. It is a weakness that is sometimes difficult to avoid, but no one wants to feel, because feeling envy means feeling small, and it sometimes means secretly admiring someone.
Every day we experience situations where we can not avoid comparing ourselves with others. A brother who seems to get more affection from your parents. A colleague who makes more money than we do, a neighbor who has a better car than we have. Comparisons always end up being painful if we feel we are on the losing end.
Richard H. Smith, a psychology professor at the University of Kentucky, claims that “ envy is corrosive and ugly; It can ruin your life. If you are a jealous person, it will be very difficult for you to appreciate the good things in life, because you will be overly concerned about what other people think of you. ”
Studies done on envy
Researchers have tried to understand the pathways of nerve and evolution to envy, and how it can end up feeling like a mental disorder. Research has been done on the feeling of joy that a person feels when the object that is the source of envy falls apart.
Last year, the results of two studies conducted by Nicole E. Henniger and Christine R. Harris were published in the journal Psychology and Basic Applied Social Psychology. Nearly 900 people between the ages of 18 and 80 participated in these studies, where they were asked if they had ever felt envy for anyone, and if they still felt that envy today.
Around 80% of the participants under the age of 30, claimed that they had felt envious during the past year, while the percentage of people older than 50 who said they had felt envious was 59%. Another conclusion drawn from the study was that envy is not gender dependent; Men and women are equally envious of other people’s success.
A study conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Radiological Science in Japan was published in the journal Science. There they describe the brain activity of research subjects who were asked to imagine themselves as the protagonist in a social drama with other people who were more or less successful.
When the person compared himself to someone he envied, the areas of the brain where physical pain is recorded were activated. If the person being studied was given an opportunity to imagine that the subject they envy was somehow destroyed, the brain’s reward center was activated.
To envy is to admire
Sometimes we talk about healthy envy or admiration, and if we are really capable of focusing our desires, envy can stimulate improvement, it can show us a goal we can seek to achieve. We can envy other people’s abilities, and this can help us become better versions of ourselves.
But if envy turns into a negative desire for the other person, the positive turns into a focus on frustration and uncertainty, and it will give us a distorted picture of reality, which will keep us down and prevent us from making changes for to become better people.
We can turn our envy into admiration when we look at the other person with our hearts and emotional intelligence, when we are happy with their progression , their talents, opportunities and when we take part in their success. The word admire comes from the words “ad” (add) and mirare (to see), so it is a matter of seeing more in another person, seeing the best in another person. That is what will motivate us to have goals, and to work hard to achieve them.
