Nine Ways To Stop Envy From Ruining Your Life

Dec 1

Does social media make you feel bad about your life?

There are times in my life that I feel great about my career and accomplishments. I’m glad that I finished school, got married, and started making a good living for myself. And then I see people who seemingly have done all of those things five years earlier than me who have better houses, cars, and things than I do. Had I not scrolled on social media or heard about all of their accomplishments, I would have actually been perfectly content with my trajectory. There's one thing that can cause a perfectly satisfied person to second guess their life decisions and boil in anger about how other people have it better.

Envy

Envy happens when you feel discontent about your life when you see what someone else has. Here are a few ways envy can show up.

I feel like everyone is better off than I am. I worked so hard, but I still feel so behind everyone else.
My coworkers are so intelligent and gifted. I can hardly get my job done and feel like such an imposter.
I feel locked into a constant competition with my family, siblings, and friends. I can only feel love, acceptance, and accomplishment if I’m doing as well as or better than others.
My classmates and colleagues had everything in life handed to them. They have good families, lots of wealth, and no real problems to speak of. It’s so unfair that my life is this difficult.
I look like a slob compared to my friends. They are dressed much nicer than I am and I can hardly find something to wear every morning.

Envy often starts off innocently with you noticing the differences between you and the people around you. You notice that you are much better off than certain people, but also that there are some people much better off than you. Envy then takes root when you start to dwell on the small and large ways that other people have a better deal in life than you do.

Your family and culture can unfortunately encourage you to be envious of other people around you. Parents compare their children to their siblings and friends negatively when they want them to work harder. Social media convinces us that everyone around us is happy, healthy, and beautiful. Making matters worse, social media parades how people have nicer houses, cars, and possessions than you do. You then respond to this pressure around you by working harder to compete so that you don’t get left behind.

Envy then taints and distorts the way that you perceive others and the world around you. Instead of seeing people and the world wholistically, you start focusing on how unfair things feel and how much happier you’d be if you could have what other people have.

Envy can cause us to

Lose Confidence
It’s hard to feel motivated when you feel behind everyone else and that you will never be able to “catch up”. This causes you to undervalue our own unique contributions and only focus on the traits that you don’t possess. Undervaluing your unique contributions makes you come across as unsure of yourself and diminishes your ability to make decisions. This will also make it more difficult for you to express your opinions out of fear that others are smarter. Lacking confidence then causes you to struggle with asserting boundaries and not confidently speak up on topics you are knowledgeable about.
See the world in a materialistic way
You stop yourself from feeling satisfaction with life because you notice other people have more advantages than you do. You then orient your goals and purposes in life towards acquiring material things at the expense of other things that actually create contentment, like friends, family, spiritual fulfilment, and career enjoyment.
Prioritize material gain over meaning and satisfaction
Envy convinces you that the source of happiness is having the best stuff, attributes, relationships, money, and career trajectory. The consequence of this belief is that you work long hours, spend extra money, and waste countless time competing with the lives of other people around you. Making things worse, a lot of the people you envy and compete with are those you don’t even have any relationship with. When you fail to win this internal competition, you feel disappointed and upset. When you finally do win, there is tremendous pressure to continue performing so that you can keep up the standard.
Assume that having more advantages makes us happier people with less problems
Have you ever though to yourself, “how can someone like her even be upset? Look at how wonderful her life is!” Or, “that guy has everything going from him. I don’t believe him when he says that his life is hard and he’s overwhelmed. He doesn’t even know what hard is.” These statements tell you that you have been brainwashed by envy. You have started to believe that having advantages is the source of happiness and are baffled that privileges don’t make always make people happy.
Avoid taking responsibility for our life and decisions
Envy makes you feel like life is so unfair that you don’t even have a chance at competing. This excuse then causes you to underperform because you feel resentful that other people might have it easier. This makes it hard for you to feel confident when dating, applying for jobs, or socializing because you blame your circumstances on the fact that you don’t have certain advantages.
Sabotage important relationships with others
If you can’t celebrate with friends and family when they have accomplishments, it will start damaging your relationships with them. This will make people feel more reluctant to share their triumphs with you because it’s noticeable that it upsets you. This will also make it more difficult to maintain relationships over time since there’s going to be years that you’re more productive and years that you feel behind.

Everyone struggles with envy. The good news is that there are multiple ways that you can break the cycle of constantly comparing yourself to others.

The Solution to Envy

Acknowledge when you are envying
Did you know that envy is a habit? The more you engage in this habit, the stronger it will become. The first step in breaking this habit is identifying when you are doing it. For a lot of people, envying can feel good in the moment and difficult to stop. Remind yourself in these moments that envying is a pattern and that it needs to be replaced with something else for you to feel more content. The more you engage in this pattern, the worse you will feel about yourself.
Clarify what is actually important to you
What is the most important thing in this world to you? For many people, it’s their relationships with others, relationship with God, purpose in life, meaningful contribution, inner peace, health, and how they spend their time. If these things are what is most important, then why are you spending countless hours at work competing with others, resenting the fact that someone has better qualities or things than you do, or seething about someone having a better house? Even though there is a benefit to having some of these advantages, none of those things actually are what bring long term satisfaction.
Take responsibility for what you can change
Envy focuses your mind on things that feel unfair, unattainable, and out of reach. Instead of dwelling on what you don’t have, you should focus on what meaningful steps you can take to make your own life better. Do you want to go on more vacations? Set a realistic budget and start saving. Do you want to advance more in your career? Read some books, takes some classes, and start networking. Envy pushes you to be passive and resentful, but instead you need to be active and motivated to change your circumstances.
See people for more than their things
Everyone has problems, pains, and rough spots in their life no matter how many privileges they have. Envy brainwashes you to believe that people who are “successful” somehow don’t have real problems. Taking this a step further, envy even causes you to foolishly believe that if you were more successful and talented that you wouldn’t be having problems. Once you’ve caught yourself envying, pivot to understanding people more realistically. “Even though this person is pretty talented, that doesn’t mean that everything in their life is perfect. Everyone has something going on, not just me.”
Consider your own talents and advantages in life
Envy helps you forget the fact that you actually do have a lot going for yourself. Identifying and valuing our own talents gives you perspective on the unique role you fill in the lives of others and focuses you on how you can further develop your skills. Even if you are not the smartest person at work, think about what you uniquely bring to the table. Even if you are not the most affluent of your friends, focus on the reasons why people enjoy being your friend. Even if you don’t have the perfect family, look at the other important relationships that you’ve formed in your life.
Cultivate a habit of appreciation
Appreciation gives you perspective on what is actually important and valuable. The fact that you likely have some great people around that love you, the fact that you have made meaningful contributions through your work and friendships, and the fact that you still have time to make more of an impact is inspiring. Envy wants to argue with the statements I just made to convince you that there is nothing good about your life, while appreciation is trying to remind you that there is hope.
Differentiate envy from genuine desires
Do you actually want to have a nicer car? Before you went on social media, did you really care about the fact that you haven’t had a fancy vacation this year? Before your friend shared a recent victory or accomplishment, did you honestly feel a need to improve yourself to compete? Genuine desires are born from our actual values while envy is created from greed and comparison. Pursuing genuine desires feels rewarding because it allows us to live into our values and spend time on things that really matter. Pursuing envy does not satisfy you because you honestly don’t even care to have those things in the first place.
Have a healthy relationship with the advantages in your life
Having advantages in life is not someone’s main source of happiness and contentment. Can advantages be beneficial and helpful? Definitely! Being smart, attractive, talented, having a job that pays a lot of money, etc. can be really helpful. However, these advantages, in of themselves, are not why people have happy and fulfilled lives. Having a strong relationship with God, being on good terms with your family and spouse, making time for hobbies and meaningful volunteer work, and feeling content in the life have a much stronger impact on life satisfaction. Having advantages does not guarantee happiness and fulfillment which is why it’s pretty common for some of the most privileged people in society to live very meaningless and miserable lives.
Limit your time on social media and don’t dwell on envy
Spending hours of your week observing the lives of friends, family, and influencers will make anyone feel bad about their life. Instead of this, fill your life with meaningful activities that improve your mood and think more clearly about how to live into your values. Mindless entertainment and scrolling doesn’t make anyone feel good because these activities don’t aligns with anyone’s actual values and it gets you no closer to living the life you actually want to live.

Challenges And Questions

How much time were you stuck in envy in the past week?
What areas of your life do you hold the most pain, resentful, or unease?
What steps can you apply from this article to better manage your envy?

Joe Rustum