It's the opposite problem for me, haha. I find myself holding back envy and telling my ego to calm down because my internal dialogue likes to judge the worthiness of other individuals' success.
As a music producer, it's often hard to hold that back when you listen to the radio or you see content that is not up to your standards yet is receiving massive popularity. But I am working on taking a deep breath, clearing my mind and remind myself that everyone's path in life is different and we are all committed to each-other's evolution.
So even if I don't like the fact that certain individuals are massively popular while I, myself, am not, I try to remember that they are playing a valuable role in my evolution, as well as I am providing a valuable role in others' evolution in different ways.
Now, being on the receiving end of envy... I suppose it depends on how you measure your own success. For me, if someone envy's me I just tell them "I fake it until I make it. I seem more successful than I really am" and leave it at that, but if I were indeed traveling around the world and did not have to worry about debt or bills, then yes I would feel somewhat like I should give back in some way. Not necessarily to those who envy me, and certainly not because they envy me, but rather because other people deserve to have that life as well.
There are three major forces that create envy in our society (in my opinion)
- Inequality
- Perceived inequality
- Selfishness
Let's face it, we don't live in a world of equality, or even partial equality. We pretend as if we all have the same opportunities, but do we really? Those who are born in certain areas, to certain families, will always have greater financial opportunities presented to them than those who are born in other areas with other families.
[IMAGE: https://steemitimages.com/DQmZawHDJEFkNP6J2FCbtzFH4FD66ZJXccmVq7Hy7VYaBjG/Rich%2Bvs%2Bpoor%2Brich%2Band%2Bpoor%2Blife%2Bfacts%2Bhttpimfunnynetrichandpoorlifefacts_ff87ad_4419784.jpg]
This inequality creates envy of the "haves" by the "have nots" and that problem can only be solved by not allowing .0001% of society to own over 40% of the resources, holding them accountable for their manipulation of the masses, and by co-creating a better civilization where success is not measured in how much more assets you can amass than your neighbors, but rather how much you contribute to growing your community.
The second catalyst to envy is perceived inequality. This is where an individual falsely believes or misunderstands the experiences of another to create an imagined sense of inequality. This can be easily fixed through education, compassion and empathy. Also, if the community measures their success not through individual gain but collective gain, then those who suffer from perceived inequality will more quickly be educated and cured of this misconception.
The final form of envy is the worst and the most difficult to deal with. Luckily, if I had to put a figure on it, I would say that less than 5% of our society actually suffers from this to a chronic degree. We may have fleeting moments of it, but 95% of the human beings on this world would not want to harm others in their pursuit of success, but here's the catch: this form of envy can be taught to individuals as they are growing up, and where they otherwise would not naturally have this mentality, they artificially gain this mentality by being misled by authoritative figures and leaders.
Thus the problem emerges, even though 95% of the population would not naturally decide that their self-worth is more important than those around them, they convince themselves their acts of envy are not envy at all, but rather "success." By defining their envy as success and believing the "dog eat dog world" brainwashing propaganda we often see growing up, many of our society end up envying people like the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, et al, mistakingly believing those families are "successful."
[IMAGE: https://steemitimages.com/DQmZst9hZgTTQzNkhLEE6gepWjrLR4u2kTezUeK2j31BjcT/success.png]
It could be said therefore that the 3rd and most dangerous catalyst to envy is a byproduct of the 2nd, but that is neither here nor there, the important part is the majority of human beings are born with good intentions so we can easily undo our programming and our false envy created by our mistaken concepts of success.
Fixing the inequality issue, however, is another story, and that form of envy will exist as a huge force on our world until we can end homelessness, poverty, starvation, and disproportionate ownership of resources (which often creates artificial scarcity which also creates more envy and even crime as we know it.)
All in all, most envy can be cured. But to cure the majority of it we will need to stop identifying "success" as being the man with the most control over other human beings or the man with the most possessions, and this is a core ideological problem our society faces as a result of poor education and stratification of wealth.
Thanks for reading if you read this far!
