The Ardent Axiom
Illuminating the Facts About Behavioral Health and Rising Above the Stigma
Envy / Jealousy
Envy / Jealousy
Social media:
- Everyone posts all the best things they’ve done
- Best experiences they’ve had
- Best achievements or career successes
Why do they do it?
- Share their happiness
- Create the illusion of success or to hide the things that have gone wrong
- Convince themselves that their life is better than they secretly fear it is
How does this affect us?
- We fall into the trap of comparing our lives to those of others
- We become envious over vacations, income, material objects
- We question our ability to parent our own kids into success and academic or sport achievement
- We become jealous that our jobs don’t sound as important or meaningful
- We become envious that our personal relationships aren’t as perfect
Why do we feel envious?
- Can be incredibly difficult to feel genuine joy for the success of others
- Hard to feel happy for others when our lives are falling apart
- It’s okay to admit because facing the truth allows us to rise above dishonesty
How do we rise above it?
- Compare yourself only to the person you used to be
- Your attitude, behavior, and choices have nothing to do with the lives of others
- Turn your envy into motivation to change yourself and your life, focus on your own goals and aspirations
- If you must gauge yourself by comparison to others, consider that there are people in far worse condition than you
- Learn to be grateful and remove yourself from those sources of comparison
- Unplug from social media and spend less time looking at or reading about the success of others
Career expert, Sarah Vermunt, explains in this CityLine interview how to turn jealousy into a driving force for change and self-improvement.
This series is available free for download in PDF format and includes activities for more engaged learning: Motivation
The Ardent Axiom 