They say that envy is very bad and, in part, they are right. Suddenly we can say that there is an envy that we feel towards someone who is simply better than us and we would like to be like them and then we have a more toxic one, motivated by jealousy and even the desire to not wish that person well. which we envy.
Depending on who we feel this emotion towards, we can say that There are several types of envy Below we will see what they are.
Envy is a universal feeling. We may not like to admit it, but we all feel envy at some point in our lives. It is considered a negative feeling, which distances us from happiness
This bad reputation of envy can be seen worldwide, since most of the world’s religions consider this experience as a vice, unworthy and immoral behavior. It is not strange to find in the codes of conduct of most faiths that envy is considered a capital sin, as is the case in Christianity.
We should not consider even the slightest feeling of envy as something intrinsically bad In fact, feeling a little envy is natural. For example, a 2015 study found that nearly three-quarters of its participants admitted to having been envious of someone in the last year, whether the person they envied was close to them or an acquaintance with whom they had little relationship.
For this reason, first of all, it is important to highlight the idea that we can really talk about two types of envy: one innocent and the other harmful.
The innocent would be what we feel when someone we know seems to have better luck than us and we would like to be like him or her such as seeing that you have a better salary, a nice body or speak several languages.
Instead, The harmful one is the one that corrodes us, that obsesses us with the achievements of others, which makes us think so much about that person that it prevents us from continuing with our lives. It is a toxic envy, harmful to our health and, if it gets out of hand, it may even be harmful to the person of whom we are envious.
You cannot be happy if you feel corrosive envy of other people’s achievements or of what others are like. If the success of others corrodes us, we will never be able to feel satisfied with how we are Whether we are envious people or not, the first thing we have to do to recognize that we feel envy is to know how to differentiate between the types of envy that exist. Naturally, envy is not an easy thing to correct, but if you know what type you are feeling, perhaps you can do something about it.
1. Envy towards the couple
Envy towards one’s partner is paradoxical, since At first it might seem unusual How can you feel such a bad emotion with the person you love and love? How can the success of that person to whom we wish the best corrode us?
It is normal to feel a little envy towards your partner, as long as it is innocent and in the sense that “I wish I were as good as him/her.” However, the envy we want to talk about at this point is the bad one, the toxic one and not at all innocent, the one that can feed such dangerous jealousy.
Unfortunately, there are cases in which people can be so envious of their lover’s achievements that they even wish that something bad would happen to them, something that would harm them. A point of toxicity is acquired that can greatly damage the relationship since wanting bad things to happen to your lover is not, in reality, love.
As a general rule, if someone feels this type of envy towards their partner, that person will be toxic in other areas of their life. In fact, the only way in which a person can feel envy in their relationship is because they probably conceive it in terms of a power relationship, that one is better than the other or that they have to constantly prove who is. achieving more success.
If the other person achieves more achievements, it is because they are the one wearing “the pants” in the relationship. Power is being questioned and that is when envy arises. Without getting into debates or controversies, it is common for this type of envy to occur more in men than in women, especially in heterosexual relationships.
Envy towards friends is common, something similar occurs to what happens with envy towards one’s partner. Ideally, it should not happen, because we are supposed to wish our friends the best and be happy about their achievements but the truth is that we all feel that we deserve something more than our loved ones or we would like to have the same luck as them.
We all have a friend for whom life seems to smile every day. He has the best body, he earns a lot of money, he works what he wants, he has an attractive partner, he travels… whatever he has is something that, simply because we don’t have it, corrodes us inside and makes us envious.
Depending on the degree to which envy occurs and manifests, it can become quite harmful between friends It is one thing to feel a certain envy because a friend has achieved something that he or she wanted and another is for us to feel that we are a shadow in our group of friends, that he or she is even the main protagonist of our life.
Rarely does envy towards a friend exceed the threshold of being dangerous and obsessive, especially because there are always other friends who cheer us up a little by smoothing over the rough edges. It is also thanks to those same friends who, by seeing what they are like, can make us feel better because we see that they do not have something that we do, which can raise our self-esteem a little and understand that we all have our strengths and our weaknesses.
3. Envy towards colleagues
Envy towards colleagues, at work or in class, is much more common than the other two This occurs more easily because it does not necessarily imply a relationship of closeness, love or friendship. Feeling envy towards someone with whom we have little relationship makes us feel less guilty, and we also do not consider it harmful to our relationship with them because, directly, there is none.
Well managed, envy towards colleagues It can be something motivating, an incentive to try to excel in what we are studying or in our job If we feel envy towards someone who is better than us, we may be motivated to try to do our best with the clear intention of surpassing them, of becoming the ones that people are envious of.
However, if we do not know how to properly manage this envy, it can make us bring out the worst in ourselves, earning us the enmity not only of the person we envy but also of our other colleagues. Our obsession with the person we believe is better than us, far from making us improve, harms our performance, even making us look bad.
4. Envy of successful people
Finally, we are envious of successful people, who actually can overlap with the rest of the envies that we have seen If it is done towards a complete stranger, this envy can be the least harmful for the person envied, such as a famous person, but it can be very hard for the person who feels it.
The explanation why it is especially painful for those who feel it is simple. A successful person will very rarely be upset because there is someone who is envious of him and tries to harm him. The envious person can do little towards a famous person who lives miles away from him Furthermore, the envied person is used to arousing envy wherever they go, so it is their daily bread. He doesn’t suffer much from it.
On the other hand, the person who feels envy can suffer a lot because, no matter what he does, he will never be able to reach that successful person whose exploits and good luck make him so corroded.
If they do not learn how to manage their envy, the envious person will gradually feel hatred and resentment, emotions that, far from motivating them to progress in their personal life and try to be happy, will make them obsessive about the life of the person they care about. who envies, failing in the only life that should matter to him: his own.
