Life Leveling

Today we will be tackling envy, which if we’re being honest, we’ve all dealt with at some point. Once again, this 7 Deadly Sin overlaps with the others, so I highly encourage checking out my posts on them Here. It takes a prideful person to be envious, a greedy person to desire what others have and all of this is a part of envy. So as always, let’s discuss my experience with envy and how I think you need to go about overcoming it.

*Note at the end for dedicated viewers

My Experience

Envy is a hard emotion to pinpoint, because it happens so often, even if it’s completely subconscious. This is why I think it’s the most common of the 7 Deadly Sins, since it takes a total reconstruction of our brain/values to fully escape it.

Unless you were raised very well and your parents managed to make you a fully grateful happy person, you’ve likely experienced envy at some point or another. For me, I was/am jealous of the typical nuclear family. I grew up with divorced parents, meaning mom and dad’s house. One house I grew up with my brother, mom, aunt, and various cats, the other was my dad, step-mom, half-sister, step-sister, and two mangy chihuahuas.

There were very many ways that my family life was atypical, or at least I believed it was atypical (given that I now know most people have messed up families). It didn’t help that my dad was also an alcoholic, who worked a less than desirable job (he delivered newspapers most of my life).

Now looking back, all things considered, I’m pretty satisfied with my childhood. But despite this belief, there were definite things that I believe had a profound effect on me and not in a good way.

Growing up I was decently pampered, which sounds good, until you realize that you don’t pick up valuable life skills. Never did I build the comfort with hands-on tools, resulting in me becoming scared of them. Never did I cook, which means I learned very late how to do so. Neither of these are direct results of having divorced parents, but they are facts nevertheless.

My dad being an alcoholic made me vow to myself that I wouldn’t touch the substance and so far I’ve stuck to that. Much of this doesn’t even relate to my initial envy, but that didn’t stop me from feeling so.

I deeply craved the nuclear family, a father who taught me hands on skills and a mom to teach me how to cook. If you are a parent or plan to be a parent, let me suggest a few things that I wish I had been told- or taught on top of the previously mentioned things.

I grew up-and unfortunately still am-very anxious. Anxious of rejection, failure, not being good enough, and lots more. I feel like a lot of these problems are easily fixed, unfortunately, you need a time machine (for me at least, you might have time).

I wish growing up I was taught not to fear rejection/failure, but to embrace it openly as a friendly challenge. I would subtly hammer this thought into my child’s head, hopefully so they won’t grow up to be afraid of the world like myself. I would also try to support my child no matter what they choose to pursue, telling them that the only person they could disappoint is themselves.

All of these are things I wished I had had, I don’t really envy materialistic things as much. These are far more important to me, so therefore I envy those who had them. These days I am envious of those who have things figured out. Not having this figured out causes me crippling anxiety. Deep down I know I’ve always managed no matter how difficult the situation, but there is always the thought of “what if this time is different?”.

If you want to explore more text about envy and experiences with envy, then I highly recommend the book “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” by Mark Manson. Click Here to check the book out on Amazon (this is an affiliate link, any purchases will also support me)

How to Overcome Envy

Now that you’ve heard my mumbo jumbo story, you know all that is my struggle with envy. So how do we conquer it? Well like most things I talk about, I believe it’s simple, but can take time and be very difficult. So let’s outline the steps to overcoming it!

1. Identify: If you’ve read my other 7 Deadly Sins blogs, then you’ve seen this before. You have to start by acknowledging that you are envious. If you don’t think you are, then how can you overcome it? Frankly, why would you even be here now?
2. Acceptance: You need to accept that you don’t have what they have and you may never have what they have, especially if the problem is rooted in the past (like with me). Life isn’t fair, it’s the cold, hard truth. At times life will be in your favour and at others it won’t. When it comes to desiring things there are two truths you have to accept, you can either do something about it or you can’t and it’s up to you to decide which is better worth pursuing.
3. Humble Yourself: If you’ve acknowledged that you can’t do anything about a given envy, or decided that it’s not worthwhile doing something about it, then you are ready for this step. You need to humble yourself, realize what you have is plenty, and become grateful for every aspect of your life. You know who isn’t envious? Those who are happy with what they have and how they are. This is the mindset switch that is a simple concept, but can take time and be very difficult to truly implement.
4. Honesty: This is less a thing to do at the end than something you have do throughout. You’ve got to be honest with yourself. I’m not one of those people who believes in faking it till you make it, at least in all situations. I believe it can be effective, but it still requires a level of honesty. Be honest with where you are in your battle against envy and be honest about how you feel. If you tell yourself you aren’t jealous, but you are, is that really doing any good? I believe faking it till you make it is less a mental thing as it is an actionable thing. Act as someone not envious, remind yourself, in times of envy, of what you are grateful for. Realize that people are all playing their own game, under their own rules, and with their own conditions. You have to take the mental roots of these feelings and plant new values. I’ll end this by saying a quote I’ve said many times”, which is “Comparison is the killer of all joy”.

Quick Note

I don’t know if anyone is actually paying attention, but I said I would be uploading on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from now on. Well obviously today is Saturday, so what is going on? This schedule will be kicking in starting Monday, I just didn’t want to have this giant gap from Thursday to Monday where I didn’t write.

Also, I’m going head first with this blog. I’ve whipped out my wallet on life support, and bought a hosting service. Hopefully this means I can add some plug-ins that make the site better. Given that this isn’t free and once again, my wallet is on life support, I am taking any and all support given. I have a donation sidebar on the home page for anyone who wants to contribute. Obviously zero pressure, hopefully I can make a little on ads at some point to at least maintain the site.

I continue to have a lot of fun writing these posts and look forward to doing more. I really want to build this into something special, so that I can make some type of small mark on this world. So once again, thank you for taking time to read this post and my others, and please leave your own thoughts and experiences with envy in the comments below 🙂