Why Do We Belittle the People We Envy?

Envy carries a lot of pain, ultimately stemming from a lack of self-confidence and belief in one's capabilities. When a person feels they can achieve what the other has, there is no envy. Thus, envy arises from a sense that it's impossible for them to reach the achievements or possess the abilities they see in others. Envy reflects deep despair and frustration, much more than simply "They have what I don't".

Envy disrupts a person's ability to think proportionately, to see the whole picture or recognize their own strengths and virtues. From their viewpoint, nothing they have is of any worth, while the other has everything. It is for this reason that the sages say that envy takes a person out of the world because it distorts all logical thinking and destroys their inner world.

It's important to distinguish between envy and drawing inspiration from another's success, which the sages define as "scholarly envy". The difference is rooted in a person's self-image: a person who believes that they can succeed and achieve no less than others will not envy their friend, but will find inspiration and say, "If they can do it, so can I".

This person may not strive for the exact same achievements as their friend, but may use the other's success as inspiration to innovate and adapt these successes to their personal circumstances, ultimately leading to significant achievements in their life, albeit different from those that inspired them.

Conversely, a person with low self-esteem, who doesn't believe in themselves or their abilities, will not believe that they can reach their friend's level of achievement, and will therefore envy them, begrudging their success. Since they doubt their ability to achieve similar successes on their own, they see the other as a threat, and to remove this threat, they may go as far as harming their friend, just to make the threat disappear.

The Difficulty of Envy

Envy is one of the most difficult emotions to bear because it causes a person to feel worthless and helpless, to the point where the sages teach us that one should rather suffer "a hundred deaths than one bout of envy".

A person who is experiencing envy feels that the reason for their difficult emotions is the other's success, on which they have no control, and this lack of control magnifies their difficulty and creates great feelings of overwhelm. This often turns into anger towards the person they envy, so that instead of trying to figure out how they can succeed on their own and break through the glass ceiling they've set for themselves, the envious person focuses their efforts on harming the other and minimizing their achievements. By doing so they seek to relieve their own pain from their personal lack of success, and to "punish," so to speak, the other for the pain caused by their success.

Consequences of Envy

When we look at the behavioral pattern of a person driven by envy, we see that their actions are not aimed at improving their own quality of life or obtaining personal benefit, but rather at harming the success of others.

In this way, the envious person differs from others who act for personal motives, such as someone who steals- while inherently negative- the act is for personal benefit: the thief needs money and is willing to sell their values for it! If, for example, the thief uses the money to buy a diamond, their motive is to impress others; if they buy food, the motive is hunger. Either way, there's a logical personal benefit.

The envious person however may act in ways that yield no personal gain, aiming only to harm the other. The goal is not "to have more," but "for the other to have less" which is akin to someone who steals money only to burn it without gaining any benefit, just so that it won't be in someone else's possession.

When envy arises, the person attributes their pain to the other's achievements, and therefore, their sole and only goal is to reduce the other's achievements so they no longer trigger this pain. Thus, the person does not seek to improve their own situation - a possibility they don't believe in - but focuses solely on worsening the other's circumstances.

 Diminishing the Achievements of Others

It's worth noting that sometimes, envy takes on a different character. At times envy won't lead a person to actively sabotage the other's situation, but instead "diminish" their achievements in their own perception. For example, a person might say: "Poor John, he's unsuccessful at work, his family is falling apart, he doesn't even know what's important in life, and instead of investing in truly important areas – he's investing where there's no return!"

Often it becomes apparent that this person simply envies their friend for their success, which is why they try to minimize it. They cannot cope with the feeling that the other is more successful than they believe they'll ever be, so they prefer to downplay and deny their friend's successes.

Certainly, this expression of envy is much less negative and harmful than the classical expression, which can lead to real harm to others. In this way, the person does not cause tangible damage but merely diminishes others' successes to spare themselves the pain felt from comparing others' successes to their own lack of success.

Nevertheless, this is still envy, negative in its core and essence. As long as a person continues to envy, it indicates that they don't believe in their own abilities to achieve comparable goals to those achieved by others, and therefore, instead of finding inspiration in other people's successes, they are envious and they channel their energy and motivation into negative paths. If they could free themselves from envy and seek ways to develop themselves, they would undoubtedly achieve significant success and impressive, positive outcomes.