Why envy is not good for you

The Japanese have a proverb that says that a bitter heart eats its owner.

Envy or bitterness begins with how you see yourself before you find reason for it in what others have or do.

When we’re cautioned about the negative effects of these traits, we often focus on the punishment and the harm to others.

Remember, we cannot give what we don’t have. Therefore, the envious or bitter one is consumed with such thoughts about their inadequacies, but from a position of blaming others for it.

Whether they have a legitimate gripe or not doesn’t change that reality, nor does it reduce the impact that it has on them and their health.

Trying to pacify them or trying to excuse them because of their difficult experiences (even in childhood) does nothing to uplift them.

Nor does it help us if we’re the ones struggling with such feelings of envy or bitterness towards others.

First, we must be willing to be unpopular before we are able to assist, because not validating someone’s emotional disposition often results in a negative response from that person.

Nonetheless, being told what we need to hear and not what we want to hear is the beginning of planting the seeds that will eventually grow into self-awareness and understanding.

You cannot uplift if you protect yourself or others from the truth just to spare them their feelings.

Similarly, we make it impossible for others to assist or advise us sincerely if we lash out each time we’re not supported in our views about life or about others.

To grow, you must be willing to be corrected.

Ideally, such correction should be gentle and reassuring, with empathy and compassion.

But that doesn’t mean that we should reject it if the tone is not what we want.

We must be more invested in wanting to learn than in how we want to be taught, otherwise we will go through life blaming others for not treating us the way that we want to be treated.

It always starts with you.

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