What can envy teach me? How can I learn from it?

I feel envy often occurs for me when people seemingly have things that I feel are not possible for me but that I want … and it’s a powerful tool to determine why I want those things, what I really want and how to develop towards gaining more of those things.

Like a huge motivator for me is I want a peaceful life, sometimes I’ll see people and feel envy as they seemingly have peace … so it’s a bell saying, this is what you want, go after that thing, figure out how to build the mental resources, emotional resources, the material resources, whatever it is to get to having that thing you see in others you envy. I try to break it down into its component parts, to create a kind of anatomy of what it is that I envy then work to build those things in my life.

That might mean reading some self help books, that might be adjusting my diet, might mean taking relaxing baths, that might mean a whole lot of things but I think envy feeds upon a sense of disempowerment, that you see something and feel it isn’t within your power to have that thing ever and so that’s when envy occurs. But it may be a completely faulty understanding of the situation. So I think the proper response is to understand the situation and aim for as much possible for oneself.