Are we meant to be envious?

Hi friends, let’s explore how self-exploration and indigenous community can help us to overcome envy.

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The Antidote to Envy - by Lawrence Yeo

In a long article, Lawrence writes about envy, and how “we really don’t want to talk about it”. Envy is a strong and powerful feeling, it is something we sometimes struggle with.
When writing “The Antidote to Envy” the author was motivated in that ”some people are open about their struggles with envy, while the majority hide it”.

He adds, “Envy […] hasn’t had its time in the spotlight yet. […] Depression has emerged as something that’s okay to discuss. […] Envy, however, hasn’t quite found that comfort zone”. This might be due to the sense of shame that often accompanies the feeling of envy.

As “envy is running through everyone’s veins”, it impacts our sense of self-worth and we find it difficult to admit to others, in fact as Lawrence wrote, “it’s just as hard to admit to oneself”.

Oneself is what we should explore. When we don’t know who we are, we “outsource (our) definitions of success to whatever norms (we’ve) adopted”.
Self-understanding appears as the solution to envy, as the author adds “When you explore the labyrinth of your mind, you […] have no room to want what another person has”.

Our knowledge about ourselves is limited, we sometimes confuse causes with consequences, and we ignore consciously or unconsciously what shaped us, “yet the temptation is to believe we know who we are” as Lawrence states.

In the end, “The less you know yourself, the more you look to others to get an idea of your worth”. Making envy disappear from our life could be vain but, as the author concludes “the more you delve into who you are, the less you seek from others, and the dissolution of envy begins”.

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The hidden secret of indigenous - Loic Le Meur

Loic Le Meur is a successful entrepreneur, on a quest for spirituality from indigenous people. In his podcast, he invites the listener to answer the question “When is it that you consider you have enough to just sit still by a river?”.

We’re all pursuing goals, we tend to adopt the same way of thinking.
Our “standardised” vision and beliefs make us live the same way.
We are on a continuous pursuit for more, more of everything, at all times.
Eventually, this leads us to dizziness creating the need to find something new to pursue, as Loic described “Once the discomfort is too high many start looking for something else”.

“Indigenous or spiritual people […] do not seek anything they just are”.
Consistently seeking more spirituality, more consciousness is a trap, though the author adds “There is no effort wasted on this path” but we should aim not to get stuck in the seeking.

Behind this spirituality in the indigenous people, there is a “strong communities that constantly share knowledge”. A community cherishing the elders “who spent their lives learning, then teaching and sharing knowledge”.
This idea of community is intrinsic to our nature of being social creatures as individuals.

We sometimes see ourselves as “individualists, in competition and selfish” or envious as Lawrence wrote in his article.

But as Loic explained, this could just be a “travesty of what human nature really is about”.

And there, is where the dots connect!

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