Envy is a feature, not a bug

When we start treating envy as a form of emotional intelligence, we get access to powerful data about who we think we are meant to be.

Envy and what should (not) be

Envy is often treated as a kind of psychological or even spiritual mistake. If we could just stop comparing, we’re told, then we’d stop despairing. The assumption seems to be that when you’re evolved enough, you just won’t concern yourself with what anyone else does or has.

So envy becomes doubly shameful. Not only do we not have what we want, but we’re petty and misguided enough to feel bad because someone else has it.

But this view comes from a simplistic understanding of what envy is and how it works. Envy isn’t just about wanting what someone else has. It’s about seeing what someone else has and believing that you should have it.

Let’s say, for example, that I notice someone driving by in a convertible on a sunny day. When I’m just feeling like I want a convertible, the person who owns the car is largely irrelevant. They just happen to be present while I’m thinking about how it would be nice to have a convertible.

But when I’m feeling envy, I feel like I should be in their place — like my not having the convertible is some kind of system error. Why has does this other person have a convertible when I don’t? It feels totally unacceptable. The problem isn’t just that I don’t have something someone else has. It’s that I don’t have something I am supposed to get.

Envy is so torturous in part because of this feeling that things are not as they should be. Our brains absolutely hate feeling like reality is in the wrong shape. (If you want proof, just contemplate a world designed by your political opponents.)

But this conviction about what should be also means that envy has a kind of hidden content. It’s like a map that shows us where we think our lives are supposed to go.

And for those of us who have long buried or denied our unique skills or sense of calling, envy may be the only map to that particular territory we can currently access.

Unfortunately, though, most of us don’t know how to decipher that map. So we wind up just railing at this faulty, unacceptable version of reality where other people keep getting our stuff. Rather than using the map to reorient ourselves, we spend our time judging ourselves for feeling envious or the world for failing to measure up to our dreams.

Here’s why that happens, and what to do instead.

Envy as an emotional dead-end

If I just want a convertible, I might start scheming for how I could get one.

If I envy someone else for having one, though, my first impulse is usually to focus on what has already gone wrong. This makes sense in terms of human evolution: if the fire in the cave was not supposed to go out, then it’s key to know what went wrong so it doesn’t happen again.

So if I am supposed to have a convertible, my brain will start trying to figure out why that hasn’t happened. Why exactly am I in this crappy reality where some people have convertibles and I am not one of them? Who or what is to blame for things not being the way they should be?

Usually the culprits will fall into three general categories:

1. The other person (I bet they cheated their way to that fancy convertible);
2. The universe in general (CLEARLY LIFE IS UNFAIR OR I WOULD BE DRIVING THAT FANCY CONVERTIBLE); or
3. Ourselves (I suck at getting fancy convertibles, plus I’m a bad and spiritually-backwards person because I feel envious of others)

Because #3 is so painful, it seems much easier to pick one of the first two. But, because we can’t do anything about either of those, they just reinforce our sense of powerlessness and make us feel worse int the long run. The message of #1 and #2 is, someone else has what I should have, and there is nothing I can do about it.

But even if I manage to entertain #3, the fault-seeking impulse means my focus is on what has already gone wrong rather than what could go right. The message of #3 is, I’m not good enough to get what I want, and the proof is right in front of me.

So I don’t start thinking about how I could change this situation over time, so that it’s different in the future. I don’t consider how my skills could get me what my envy is saying I should already have. Instead, I yell at myself for not having it right this minute. I tell myself it’s stupid to compare and despair, as if the comparison were the problem.

That’s how envy leads us to an emotional dead-end.

Envy as an emotional guidance system

It’s no surprise that we wind up looking around for someone to blame when we are feeling envious. Fault-finding is just what our brains do when we think things should be different: they try to figure out what went wrong.

But if we stay focused on fault, we miss the opportunity to treat envy like the powerful emotional guidance system that it is.

Think about it: if envy arises from our sense of what we should be doing or getting, then somewhere in us we must have a conviction that we could be doing or getting that thing. Which means envy is keyed to an implicit sense of our capabilities and purpose in the world.

For example: it wouldn’t occur to me to envy a primate researcher, because I don’t think I should be a primate researcher. I have never had the scientific skills, the commitment to experimentation, the obsession with animals.

My brain does not see anything faulty or unacceptable about a reality where I never once sit in a jungle watching gorillas in the mist. I can contemplate how amazing that life must be for those who live it and feel admiration for women who do it. None of it brings up that searing sense of wrongness, like something in my chest is being ripped in two.

But when it comes to something that does touch on my skills and sense of calling, it’s a whole different story. I can feel a surge of adrenaline just envisioning a reality where I never publish a work of fiction. Everything is my brain wakes up and starts howling, NOOOO! THAT’S NOT WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! WE ARE SUPPOSED TO WRITE THE BOOKS!

The outraged howl of envy measures the distance between the reality we’re in and the reality we believe we are supposed to create. The bigger the distance between where we are and where we think we should be, the louder and longer the howl.

Seen this way, envy is a feature, not a bug. It’s a kind of emotional compass that uses the achievements of others to point toward our own true north. And when we veer too far off course, it starts blaring its alarm-howls in our ears. It demands that we wake up and notice that we haven’t yet become who we are meant to be.

The problem, then, isn’t that we compare and despair. It’s that we don’t take the next step our envy is prompting us to take. We don’t repair. We don’t use our envy-compass to get ourselves on the path we’re supposed to walk.

And we don’t do that in part because we’ve mistaken envy for a shameful weakness, when in fact it’s a measure of our deepest strengths.

Envy arises from an underlying conviction that there is something we are meant to do, and that we have the skills required to do it. Its pain is in direct proportion to how much we believe in that version of our lives. And its urgency is a message saying: do it now, it’s not too late.

I’m a coach, academic, and writer. Contact me at info@janeelliottphd.com.