The problem with envy

The problem with envy is that it is both poisonous and pointless.

Poisonous because it focuses our attention entirely on what we lack. We become blind to the great things we already have. We fool ourselves by thinking: if I just had what they had, then I would be happy.

Pointless because we gain nothing from being jealous and envious of what others have. We make ourselves miserable with incessant and unreasonable social comparisons. Envy does little (or nothing) to inspire meaningful behavior change.

Investor and entrepreneur Naval Ravikant on the pointless nature of envy and jealousy:

at the end of the day, you’re no better off with jealousy. You’re unhappier, and the person you’re jealous of is still successful or good-looking or whatever they are.

Dreaming about having some person’s apartment, inheritance, body, partner, etc. only makes you feel worse and more resentful toward others. The practice of a lifetime is to recognize this tendency of our mind to focus on what we lack, laugh at ourselves, and bring our attention back to reality.

You can only do full swaps

Picture someone you envy, at least for one aspect of their life. Maybe it is their talent, job, apartment, or family wealth.

If a genie offered you the chance right now to completely swap lives with that person, would you?

Sure, you would get their status, their money, their skills, their good looks, or whatever thing they have that you want.

But you also must take everything else that makes them who they are: their background, health, family circumstances, regrets, losses, general disposition and habits. Everything.

Would you still make the switch?

From The Almanack of Naval Ravikant:

Do you want to actually be that person with all of their reactions, their desires, their family, their happiness level, their outlook on life, their self-image? If you’re not willing to do a wholesale, 24/ 7, 100 percent swap with who that person is, then there is no point in being jealous.

If you think “No, I want to keep my life”: that’s great. You can stop being envious. You don’t get to pick and choose the best parts of others lives for yourself. That’s ridiculous. Yet we do this in our minds all the time.

If you think “Yes, I would swap lives with this person”: are you sure? The grass is always greener. We tend to be poor judges of happiness and believe others to be happier than they are. We often overestimate how often people experience positive emotions, and underestimate how often they experience negative emotions. Instantly swapping lives with someone seemingly better off than you may not be as sweet as you imagine.

Other people will always have things you don’t: more money, nicer apartments, more prestigious jobs. But you, too, have things that other people don’t. You, in fact, may have things that other people would give anything to have. Things like stable housing, loving parents, good health, a mentor.

Better to spend your energy appreciating what we have than forever daydreaming about what we don’t.

Inner peace comes from recognizing that, more often than not, we have enough. We are enough.