Why we should stay cool in front of others’ envy

I thought I am a person who is comfortable to have around all sorts of characters. A conversation with a woman who emanated envy towards me proved how wrong I was. In fact, after the respective encounter, I remembered about previous situations when I had been uncomfortable around envious people. I started reflecting more on this side in human beings and I identified few reasons for ignoring others’ envy.

The decision to stay away

Not along ago, I was having a smooth flow of discussion with another person. Since my toddler is the main conversation partner, I was excited to discuss with a grown-up, for a change.

When I started rambling about the joy of having my blog, I saw a grimace on her face and envy floating in her eyes. I tried to carry on with the trail of thoughts but the excitement was replaced by the feeling to take distance.

I felt naked, vulnerable and inhibited when my eyes met the envious eyes. Our discussion ended abruptly with an embarrassing silence.

After the incident, I wished I had continued talking, to get to know her better.

Why do we feel envy?

Envy is a negative feeling which occurs when someone lacks another’s quality, achievement or possession and wishes that the other lacked it. This is how researchers Parrott and Smith define envy in their paper, “Distinguishing the experiences of envy and jealousy“.

Another aspect of envy is reflected in a popular Romanian saying, “If my goat died, I wish my neighbour’s goat would die too!”. This saying shows that when people are miserable, they want the whole world to suffer just the same.

The feeling of joy when others go through hard times is expressed in English by the term “schadenfreude”, which has been borrowed from German.

Most likely, linguists can provide similar sayings in other languages which reflect the same dark side in human beings – the envy.

Charles Darwin’s social evolutionary theory explains that envy is rooted in our genes for survival and procreation.

So, every human being experiences envy under different circumstances, whether towards friends who are happily in love, colleagues who have been recently promoted or random strangers who seem to have something we don’t have.

Coping with our own envy is not enough

When I was a child, my mother would tell me, “Don’t be happy about others’ failures!” So, I got the feeling that I have to cope with any seeds of envy that are growing in my soul.

Later on, I read the ten commandments in the Bible and found that envy is one of the sins that God is urging us to avoid.

What my mother didn’t tell me was how to react when I feel spitefulness in people with whom I talk. Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek. I did feel the envy like a slap on my face. And I walked away.

Getting inspired by the good

The Bible teaches that we should not be hasty to throw the stone at those in whom we see bad sides, i.e., lying, vengeful, unfaithful, etc.

Instead, we should remember about the benefits of cultivating compassion towards others. There must be something good in each one of us based on which relationships can be built.

If others are envious towards us, most likely they see something in us that they lack. We should only hope that for their sake, they’ll find a way to work on it and find their peace of mind.

Let us be happy, flattered and pleasantly surprised that others want something that we have. This something must be damn good and appealing!

Let us be humble and remember not to make the same mistake as the envious person – avoid comparing ourselves with others. My personal approach is to be aware of the envy resulting from the comparison.

Maybe others are more beautiful. That’s a fact of life. Another fact of life is that others can be more creative, more generous, funnier, smarter, wealthier and so forth.

We are unique in our own way, a blend of virtues and imperfections. Somebody has to be the best at something and it’s absolutely fine if that person is not us.

We can be the best at changing our way of thinking into a more constructive one, by focusing our energy on being a better person than we were yesterday.

I remember writing something similar in a previous post: what if we start looking at others as sources of inspiration for a better self?

I didn’t give a chance to get inspired by the good sides in the person I was talking about in the beginning of the post. Instinctively, I locked her away on grounds of the spitefulness I saw in her.

What should we strive for?

According to Buddhism, the opposite of envy is sympathetic joy, or taking joy in the good fortune of others. I’d like to add another side to the opposite of envy – accepting others’ envy.

Some of us choose to share others’ happiness. In any case, we should not be judgemental on those who are unaware of their envy or unable to do anything about it.

We can only hope that one day, they’ll have the opportunity to get out of the grip of envy and choose the love for others.

How about you? How do you react when you are surrounded by resentful individuals?

About regrets, forgiveness and joy

“No, nothing,
I don’t regret anything
Not the good that others have done to me
Not the bad, it’s all the same to me
Because my life, my joys

Today, they begin with you.” Edith Piaf, the song, “Je ne regrette rien”

It took a trip to the side of town where I used to live 9 years ago to understand that the past is recorded in my soul and it only needs an external event to trigger it out. Some regrets came to the surface of consciousness but forgiveness jumped in to help and brought joy instead.

The city – unchartered map of personal life stages

The other day I had some errands to do in a part of town where I used to live at the time when I was studying for my PhD. Since the weather was generous with us, I said to my toddler, “Let’s take a walk in this neighbourhood.”

When we were crossing the park that I used to see every day on my way to the campus, a heavy feeling nested in my chest. “This park was one of the few daily joys at that time.” I mentioned to my son, relieved that he does not quite understand what mommy is blabbering.

Feelings, which I thought were long forgotten, stormed in. If it wasn’t for the company of my child, I would have sworn I was back in time.

I’ve moved house quite a few times, and each time I moved in a new flat, I started a new stage of my life. Most likely, if I visited other neighbourhoods where I lived, I would tap into the emotional life that I had at the respective time.

I used to believe that as we grow and learn our lessons from sufferance, our soul forgets the bad and rejoices the good.

I don’t know how you are, but it appears that my soul is similar to computer databases. If the latter stores business transactions, my soul is storing the emotions lived.

Good or bad, they are both imprinted inside and it takes time and spiritual strength to move closer to the state of being of peacefulness and acceptance of the past.

Regrets, there are a few. They shall be mentioned, should I cross my way with the persons I was unjust with.

But, past is past and our life is in the present. And my present is my son.

In order to fully embrace the present, forgiveness towards ourselves can help us heal the wounds caused by regrets.

Would you like to turn back the time?

If you can’t truly forgive yourself, in your fantasies, you can turn back the time if you want to. Live imageries where you apologise from your heart. You can cry, or smash some dishes in the kitchen. Then, return to your present.

Most likely, the present holds its own challenges. Life becomes way too complex if we carry the burden of the past to entangle it with the hardships of the present.

Comparing life stages just to make a point that we are better off or worse off in the present is such a waste of energy.

It does not matter if we were happier or more miserable 5 years ago. It matters that we are here and now and we need to do our best with our emotions, intellectual and spiritual abilities to live the now.

At the end of this life, I’d like to be able to say wholeheartedly, “I did my best to live beautifully!” The emotions and thoughts recorded in my personal database would stand as clear evidence.

There is no joy or love that would be lost, they are all preserved in us!

Do you have any regrets? If you do, how much do you think they affect your ability to live the present?

Let’s be kind to the emptiness inside

Emptiness is one of the feelings that most of us have experienced. Knowing the cause of this feeling is less important. It is more important to know how we can cope with it.

Talking about the durability of the new constitution, Benjamin Franklin wrote to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, “…but in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

When we turn our attention towards our inner world, the feeling of emptiness is certainly something that every human experiences to different extent, many times during a lifetime. Wikipedia defines emptiness as “a sense of generalised boredom, social alienation and apathy.

Think of these potential life situations:

  1. We are madly in love, hoping to spend all our life with the loved one. One day, we realise we need to start walking separate ways.
  2. We’ve recently attended the funeral of a loved one.
  3. We reached a goal after years of endeavours and hardships.
  4. Our life is missing someone close to us to love and care for.
  5. We made a huge leap of faith, leaving behind the safety of a job and plunging into the unknown of a new professional start.

In any of these cases, emptiness may grow inside until the only feeling we are aware of is the void, which carves our soul and numbs it.

Should we be afraid of the lack of aliveness?

Just like Winter is a natural and important season in some climates, the same with emptiness, it can be a natural part of the changes we go through in life.

Apparently, nothing happens inside us when we feel it. But if we contemplate more on it, we can see that a new start is on its way.

Instead of fearing it, we can embrace it and let it stay in us for a while.

Should we just lie down and wait?

The sun still shines and warms in the Winter. In a similar way, we owe it to our soul, that is momentarily void, to carry on with activities that can have a healing effect.

People are the most effective way to help our soul in transformation, especially those persons we truly connect with. Simply being by their side suffices to soothe our soul and sluggishly charge it with aliveness.

Assuming we don’t have any such person in our life, listening to music can be an equally good choice. Any type of music will do as long as it resonates within us.

Watching theatre performances can have miraculous effects on our soul. An actor’s gesture, facial expression or a fleeting line can touch us and lift us up. Or stand-up comedies can make us laugh the emptiness out.

Art exhibitions have a similar effect as theatre performances. I remember visiting one of Picasso’s exhibitions in Helsinki. I was watching one of his paintings when I uttered with admiration, “What a genius mind, thinking to paint a face based on the personality of that woman and not on her physical traits!”

Hardly did I know that the impact of Picasso’s painting was deeper than a one minute admiration. The moment I stepped out the museum I felt that I can do whatever I want. In the following days, I found the courage to truly love.

If arts are not our cup of tea, then maybe sports can help to move on from emptiness to the next stage of personal growth.

If none of the above-mentioned activities are appealing, then it may help the thought that at the same time with us, there are others who feel the same. And we can imagine that we all gather under the moonlight and watch it in silence.

The sun will shine tomorrow again.

How about you, what do you do when you feel emptiness?

Summer epiphany

The day when I discovered inner freedom, I felt genuinely happy.

Welcome back home

After a cold and long Winter, Summer came in May, very determined to enforce its rule on the nature. The air is filled with the scent of lilies and other blossoming flowers. The birds enliven the silence of the night with their uplifting songs.

My frozen soul woke up one morning with the joy to live for the day.

Beyond all the clutter and worries of the mind, I tapped into an inner freedom. It felt like returning back home, to my true self!

A nonconventional freedom

This inner freedom I am talking about is a state of being which quiets the mind and enables to feel the flow of the present experiences.

In this state of being, there are no identities as a parent, partner or professional. It’s only the natural state of being, defined by aliveness.

It is from within this inner freedom that happiness originates. It is within this space where each day, I can redesign my inner world.

Connected to the inner freedom

Life reaches a deeper dimension where there is excitement and acceptance of what is.

At this deeper dimension, I can only smile at the expectations that I set on others or the expectations that others may have on me. I can only laugh about my miseries.

I come one step closer to God, genuinely grateful for being alive. I embrace all the nuances of truly living!

Let’s dare to live!

What’s your take on the importance of inner freedom for personal happiness?