[Music]
i want a partner like yours and i want
friends like that guy
and i want eyebrows like that girl and i
want his popularity and money
i want her bravery and intelligence and
happiness
i don't actively think about comparing
myself to these people
but it's inevitable a natural instinct
as we collect
information about our surroundings to
evaluate how we're doing in life
when i compare and i measure up i tend
to feel good about myself
when i compare and i measure down i tend
to feel bad about myself
though not also comparison leads to envy
envy
always starts with self comparison but
it goes
far beyond simply wanting something see
not only do i want
what you have but i don't want you to
have
what you have in fact i can't stand that
you get to have it and i don't
it's unfair i'm entitled to everything
that everyone else gets to have
why should i be any less if you were
a little bit less happy then i'll get to
be happier
and if your relationship wasn't going so
damn well i would feel better about
being single
everyone seems to like you and speak so
fondly of you so
when someone finally criticizes you it's
deeply rewarding to me
in fact you're not even that smart or
pretty
or funny or accomplished and you have
something that i want
i feel inferior to you so in order to
at the very least feel equal to you i
need to either
bring you down or bring myself up and
since it's easier bringing others down
than it is working on lifting myself up
that's what i will try to do
yeah so something like that is an
example of how
envy may play out in a person's mind
envy is when we see someone who has
something that we want
and so now we experience a gap between
where we are and where we want to be
what we have and what we want to have
and
it's how we respond to such gaps both
emotionally
and through our actions that we should
pay very
close attention to so i like to think of
envy as
a spectrum where on one end it's very
hostile
so similar to what i just demonstrated
and on the other end
it's very non-hostile and i figured we
could take a trip down memory lane to
explore
both ends with the help of some examples
from
my life
so the prime of my envy was probably
in my early teens and what i would envy
the most was other girls looks
and specifically their bodies i was
teased for being
too skinny i don't think a day went by
where
someone did not make a comment about my
weight
and my body or at the very least someone
would grab my wrist
like this and say something like oh my
god you're so skinny or
watch out or you will break hi future
lana here editing this video so they
would actually grab it like this
you know the good old circle grab that
you use to determine how
skinny someone is so that you can then
proceed to telling them that they are
too skinny and i remember liking this
boy
when i was like 15 and him not wanting
to be with me because
he said that i did not look womanly
enough
and then he sent me a photo of another
girl's body
to show me what a real woman is supposed
to look like and
i remember saving that photo and looking
at it over
and over again wishing that i looked
like that and i would resent the girl in
that photo
or really any girl whose body looked
like hers
[Music]
high school was a bit better although i
would still get commented on
it did not happen as frequently but i
would still feel
insecure and try to hide certain parts
of my body so remember i had this
long crossover bag and i would put the
bag part
over my bum to cover it up and to avoid
getting
comments that i had a small bum and real
women should have
a big butt you know thinking about that
is really sad i wish i could go back in
time and just tell that girl that
it doesn't matter no one actually
cares and you are beautiful but
since i can't do that i will tell you if
you
are in a similar situation
college was completely different you
know no one cared what anyone else
looked like and so
i didn't care either i would still feel
insecure
at times but you know i was able to
fully acknowledge
someone else's beautiful figure without
feeling any negative
emotion towards them or towards myself
and then upon graduating i had left
pretty much all of that in the past i
was free
of intrusive thoughts and free of envy
in that regard and that's where i still
am to this day so let's start digging
into
what actually happened during those
years and it's important
to note here first of all that according
to studies
envy typically declines with age meaning
that
teens experience it more than adults so
i would say
that's the first thing that happened i
simply grew older
and secondly the whole reason i got
to the point of feeling so inadequate
and envious of others was because of the
image of what my body should look like
that had been pushed down my throat for
so long for so many years by other
people
and i had believed in it but once i
changed my environment and hence
changed my surroundings aka going from
school to college
and no one was there to remind me of my
inadequacy
i guess i simply forgot about it you
know i was now
the sole judge of what i felt when
i looked myself in the mirror and it
turned out that i
liked what i saw and i no longer needed
anyone else's permission
to do that and by the way this is not to
say that we should blame other people
for our envy or our insecurities i'm
simply sharing how it played out
for me in this particular case now upon
graduating
i experienced a different kind of envy
i envied people who seemed to have their
jobs and careers
all figured out and who seemed happy
with what they were doing because
i did not have that so i tried
to justify my position of
dissatisfaction by thinking things like
well the whole reason that they can even
live their dreams
is because they were luckier or they
were better off or
they got help they had access to things
that i did not have
access to and whatnot and even though
there might have been some truth
to that it was all just an attempt
really to make myself feel better for
not having what they had
by attempting to minimize their
accomplishments and this is something
that we often do
when experiencing envy now did it work
did i feel better no of course not
you know at best a victim narrative
which is what that was
will have you remain stuck
but typically it'll actually move you
backwards because now
not only do you feel dissatisfied
with life or career or whatever it might
be
but you also feel resentful now here is
where we get to the part that i think
really is worth reflecting on
and it's how i currently deal with any
envy that i may
experience so what i ended up realizing
was that really envy
wasn't about any specific person you
know it was only about
what they had which in this example
was an enjoyable career and
in thinking this way you know in
moving the person out of the equation
and separating the message from the
messenger or
the possession or position from the
person
i was able to do two things so firstly
instead of viewing anyone who possessed
something that i wanted in a hostile way
i started viewing them as people who had
enlightened me you know someone who had
helped me identify
a gap in my life and perhaps even
someone that i could set
as an example or as a teacher
and secondly i was able to get more
clarity on what exactly it was that i
was
envying and i could decide what action
should follow see in many situations in
life there's the option of
doing something useful or doing
something that isn't useful or perhaps
even harmful
or doing nothing at all and how do we
choose so
i often find myself returning to the
serenity prayer
god grant me the serenity to accept the
things that i cannot change
courage to change the things that i can
and
wisdom to know the difference now i
already have a video about
quitting my job and pursuing what i'm
doing now so i won't get into that here
but
this would be an example of non-hostile
envy where my envy actually even led me
to something
good and now this all begs the question
envy always a sign that we lack
something we ought to be pursuing
and is the best thing to do when
experiencing
envy to seek to improve ourselves
or improve our situation
well i definitely think that
self-improvement
is the better option as opposed to
self-destruction
or engaging in the destruction of others
but there is also the option of simply
doing
nothing you know there may be a lot of
things
in life that we envy but that doesn't
mean that
having all of those things would improve
our lives or make us happier
every single emotion that we feel is
not a sign that we need to change
something
sometimes we can just let ourselves
acknowledge a feeling
and then do nothing about it
i like to think of it as seeing a
sailboat passing you
on a lake and not attempting to throw
rocks at
it but also not attempting to build your
own but
simply letting it pass you
now sometimes we may envy someone for a
skill that they have
the good news is that skills are
something that we ourselves can learn
by using skillshare for example who is
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there's still so much more for me to
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ten dollars a month all right thank you
all so much for showing up to this
conversation here today
please share your thoughts on the topic
of envy i'm
very curious as to what your experiences
and
could you relate to my experience at all
let's chat about it in the comment
section
and as always i will see you there