The Bible names it as one of the seven deadly sins. Though many Catholics may mean something else by “deadly sins.” I believe that they are “sins,” that if we don’t overcome, will kill the very essence of who we are, of who we are meant to be. (By the way, the six other “sins” are sloth, anger, avarice, gluttony, pride, and lust.)
To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than happiness.
Happiness is the true antidote to envy. Being grateful for exactly where and who you are is my definition of happiness. Knowing that your hard times will make you stronger and even more thankful for the good times might also help.
There are entire books written on the subject of envy. And of course, the internet is filled with advice about overcoming or coping with jealously. One article that I found particularly helpful was one also entitled "The Green-Eyed Monster." Joseph Epstein distinguishes between the words jealousy and envy, but I'm using them synonymously in my post.
Envy implies discontent, resentment, and bitterness. Epstein tells us that "malice . . . cold-blooded but secret hostility, impotent desire, hidden rancor, and spite all cluster around the center of envy." Certainly not feelings that you want to encourage to grow within you. Instead you will want to sow the seeds of contentment, gentleness, generosity, and love into your life.
According to Wikipedia from an article entitled Envy, “like greed and lust, envy is characterized by an insatiable desire . . . Envy can be directly related to the Ten Commandments, specifically, ‘Neither shall you desire... anything that belongs to your neighbor.’ Dante defined this as ‘a desire to deprive other men of theirs.’ In Dante's Purgatory, the punishment for the envious is to have their eyes sewn shut with wire because they have gained sinful pleasure from seeing others brought low. Aquinas described envy as ‘sorrow for another's good.’”
Jealousy seems to say that everyone else has it easier than I do and that they are so obviously happier than I am. But this is a false and dangerous belief. We tend to compare our lives, which is always a mixed bag of good and bad, with what we falsely perceive as the “perfect life” of another.
When we do this, we minimize our own talents, gifts, and graces and maximize the other person’s. Ironically, we often do the opposite with our problems and struggles: we maximize our own and minimize the other person’s
Others seem more clever, more attractive, more popular, more relaxed, more athletic, more talented, more wealthy, more loved, more powerful, or more whatever than we are and therefore (or so it seems) they lead a charmed life. The other person, or so we surmise, faces no real problems in his/her life. Or if we do know that they face problems, we think, “well, their problems are not as bad as mine.”
But no one (let me repeat that) no one leads that proverbial "charmed life." Everyone’s life is a full measure of graces and blessings, as well as struggles and challenges.
One of my worst cases of jealousy nearly ruined the last decade of my teaching. By that time, I had given up being English Department Chair to another teacher in my department. That same year, we got a new English teacher who was young and witty. The chair took a real liking to her, and from that point on, it seemed that he favored her in every way. I would often say, even to him, that he treated me like some old aunt that he didn’t like very much. If not for my envy of her, I think that she and I could have been friends. Even if he did favor her, so what? I needed to be happy where I was--no longer burdened with the weight of being department chair--and free just to teach my classes.
The main thing about jealousy is that if we are envious of another, that means that we are not being accepting and loving toward ourselves, that we are dissatisfied with ourselves. Loving ourselves is the most important thing for us to do to get rid of envy. If we love ourselves fully, then we will not allow ourselves to live in the despair of jealousy. We will realize that envy is a self-poisoning of the heart and mind and that it is a spirit-killing and joy-killing enemy.
Trapped by our false ways of perceiving other’s lives, we denigrate our own lives and thus devalue ourselves. Since it is always easier to imagine the “fantasy” life of another, we remain stubbornly unsatisfied with our own. The tendency to compare ultimately leads to despair because our own real life can never compare with the perceived (but false) perfection of the other person’s life. And so, we are led into a spiritual dead end.
There is a rather pithy saying for this: Compare and despair.
Jealousy is referred to as “the green-eyed monster” because it is a monster that destroys us and our happiness. The cure for the “sickness” of jealousy is to love yourself enough--to know that you are who and where you are supposed to be--not to allow that green-eyed monster to eat you up, to eat up your happiness.
"Little is good about envy, except shaking it off, which, as any of us who have felt it deeply know, is not so easily done," writes Epstein. Being loving to yourself is the way to shake jealousy off. Loving yourself feels like being ever so tender and gentle with yourself--nonjudgmental toward yourself. It means no negative messages about yourself, absolutely no put-downs toward yourself in your head or in your heart. Only loving messages about yourself to yourself--as if you are talking to someone that you love very much and don't want to offend or hurt in any way.
Loving yourself means being kind, patient, protective, and generous toward yourself. Can you do it? Can you love yourself enough to shake off any minor pricks of envy or, at least, to shake off, what Epstein calls, "its deep, soul-destroying, lacerating stabs"? Loving yourself is easily said, not so easily done. It takes lots of practice.
Self-love is not selfish love. It's something that you truly have to accomplish before you can honestly love another. I think that it is now time for you to begin your practice of self-love day by day and to allow envy to fall by the wayside. If you feel jealousy creeping up again, then you will know that you are not being as loving toward yourself as you need to be. Love yourself deeply until envy fades away again. Practice self-love always.
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