The Role of Envy in Building Models

We cannot be only good or only evil, just as we cannot be only beautiful or ugly, righteous or unjust, brave or cowardly, worthy or unworthy, human or inhuman.

Man is ultimately built on the template of a two-sided coin, always split under the dome of antagonistic values. In this context, envy, like parts of wickedness and gentleness, are part of human nature. In their easy way, the reactions of envy are feelings that tell, tell about the need for love, attention, to have, to be with others.

Envy is as human a feeling like any other. It says something about the individual.

Envy in an essential way appears from the first years of life when either finds as object the toys of the other children that we would also like, the younger brother who benefits from more attention, the parents that we see that they can handle while we, in some ways, are still powerless, or the teacher who impresses with the way she speaks.

From envy to admiration

Envy comes in the relationship of rivalry with those who are, we believe, in a more advantageous position than we are. It is important to be able to channel this envy into admiration and to build our models, to borrow from them the things that fit into who we are and want to become.

This would ultimately lead to our growth and development. Envy increases in direct proportion to admiration. The more we admire a person, the more we envy him, the more we want to be, not necessarily like him, but especially in his place.

Envy and admiration do not nullify happiness

The state of happiness is not continuous and constant. Happiness and unhappiness are like needle points that appear and disappear at the same time. I can be happy that I have reached a stage of development, but from that moment I start to tend towards other targets, giving rise to envy and admiration for a new person, coordinates that can activate a state of unhappiness.

However, this new unhappiness does not cancel out the happiness of the previous success, but it does not keep it constant. Happiness is a concept. It is a notion, and psychologically it translates into a state of well-being.

Denigrations, expressions of personal failures

When we hear a success story we tend to say that something is wrong. This attitude is also based on envy. Success stories come automatically and confront us with the failures of our personal history.

The more we face people who have experienced success and success, the more we face our failures. Hearing about the successes of others, we reactivate in our memory the fact that we wanted the same things, but we didn't succeed or we did, but we lost. Success stories are like mirrors that bring to our own stories about successes, but also failures.

These feelings are activated by the side of envy. We can rejoice for the other, but at the same time, we have a feeling of failure that we feel all the more acute the more we see that the other has succeeded. The less successful our experience is in it, the more the denigration scenarios we create and the vehement way in which we support the lack of fairness or values ​​of the successful person show the low personal success rate.

Envy is inevitable

The way we manifest and capitalize on the feeling of envy depends on the personal structure of each one, on the place where the person lived, the style, the culture that was imprinted on him through education or at the table level. 

Apart from this, the personality structure and how everyone manages to negotiate with the negative parts of the psyche (envy, malice, aggression) take shape from the lazy, lazy, abandonment of their dreams, to ambition. Whether we want to admit it or not, envy is present in every action we take.

A comprehensive character

How the individual chooses to negotiate inwardly with his envies, models that he inherited in capitalizing on envy, has an explanation in a certain type of education applied within the family, in belonging to the culture in which it was formed.

But, more than belonging to a certain area or a certain style of approach at the table level, we must keep in mind that everyone has a certain style, a certain personal history that influences it.

Failure to recognize external successes, proof of weakness

Denigrating stories are a weapon of self-defense that comes from the inability to recognize our inability to achieve something we wanted and only others have succeeded.

The recognition, the appreciation, the joy for the one who succeeded, brings with it the recognition towards ourselves, first of all, of the fact that we, for one reason or another, did not succeed. Recognizing the other's merits and resources can put us face to face with assuming and recognizing in our own eyes the helplessness or gaps we have.

It is difficult to analyze and realize our limits. So far I have been able to. It is easier to dismantle the other to keep ourselves in a false picture of what we can do.