How to Use Your Envy to Your Advantage
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“We just started using the terms boyfriend and girlfriend last week!”, my friend gushed to me.
“Oh my god, congratulations, that’s so exciting!” I heard myself say. Some part of me did mean it. But another, more shadowy part of me, felt a heavy blanket of envy come over me.
I felt like my friend’s excited words should have inspired selfless happiness for her, but instead, I immediately compared my singleness to her newfound romance and I felt this complicated smoothie of emotions. You are supposed to be happy for your friends! Why was I making this about me? Why can’t I just be purely, graciously happy for her rather than this abhorrent concoction of envy, loneliness, and shame?
I wrestled with this situation, not wanting to admit it to anyone. And then I realized that envy really thrives in our society, precisely because it’s rarely admitted to or talked about. It is a “deadly sin” after all. No one wants to be that person who is envious of those around them. Especially if the envy is related to friends and loved ones. There is a lot of shame attached to wanting what someone else has, and that shame is multiplied when we try to hide it away or pretend it’s not there.
en·vy /ˈenvē/ noun: desire to have a quality, possession, or other desirable attribute belonging to someone else.
There are a lot of benefits to a capitalistic society that fosters uniqueness, independence, and ingenuity. But this environment can also cultivate a sense of shame around any hint of desire for what someone else has or does. We see this shame rooted early on, as children tease each other for being “copycats” and teenagers chide “posers” for trying to be something they’re (ostensibly) not.
These same messages are carried into adolescence and adulthood where the taboo of envy becomes even more inked in. Envy-shaming is hidden in more subtle words like “basic” and “bitter”. Don’t be basic is code for Don’t like what everyone else likes. For God’s sake, be unique! You long to travel to Machu Picchu after seeing your friend’s Instagram photos of it? Psh, that’s so basic. Go somewhere more original. Bitterness is used to describe people who’ve failed to hide their envy — the bitter…
