- - public: true - {:height 330, :width 443} - Rule 1: - You will be envious of those that have reached your desired state, but are not too far removed from it. Those that are too far out will be sources of inspiration, not envy. - among the ones in the red line, envy will chose to target those - you have a shared history with - this is because shared history implies equality, a starting point. Then the other goes to achieve something, and you will feel missed out on something - and envy will more likely rise, if you havent kept in touch with your friend. (i.e the relationship is opaque). This leads us to think he made a decision which easily took him to the goal, which also could have made - a rival's path to success appears easily replicable - When someone shows you how easy they reached the goal. One is inclined to accept their guidance. You outsource your judgement to them, and you tend to lose your confidence in your capabilities. This opens the floodgates to envy -  - - Rival seems very relatable to you interms of interests, and outlooks, but outcomes is different - social media increases the amount of people in your awareness. People edit what they say, and project only the avatars of their refined selves. Social media makes them relatable to gain followers. And this in turn increases envy - How to overcome - Innovative desires (creativity) are tailored to your unique mindset and life experiences. Primitive desires, are the base level wants that cater to the lowest parts of our nature. They are thoughtless, unoriginal and anyone with a functioning human brain will want them. -  - The lower your desire is on this spectrum, the more likely it is that envy will have power over you. - The desire to be rich, famous, or have status is so commonplace that there will always be someone to personify what you want. These primitive desires tend to have the quality of never being enough, as the goalpost moves whenever it has a specific person to move it to. - Instead, it’s best to cluster your desires toward the higher area of the spectrum. These are the innovative desires that cannot be externally validated or tied to another person’s progress, and are unique to your personal experiences. For example, “know more than I did yesterday” or “learn something interesting” are things that can only be tracked by your inner scorecard. No one can tell you how you’re doing, nor can they make you feel inadequate by numerically advertising their progress - Method 2 , is to remove the envious goal from that person, would you still envy him. Chances are that, you will have lots to talk about. This shows that you dont want that persons life. You only want the desired goal. Focus on fulfilling what you want for yourself. - Mehtod 3: Take time to block all incoming signal. Shift everyone ounce of attention to what you can do. Challenging work that stretches the mind. Mindfullness practices that require you to look within - Envy is such an enduring emotion because it lives in the one habit that defines the human condition: our desire for external validation. We will put ourselves through a self-doubting hell just to know that we are seen. - The only way out is to temporarily break this habit, and to dedicate all your attention inward for a duration of time. To stop gazing into another person’s home, and instead work on cleaning up your own. And after you’ve done that, it’s important to stay in it for a while and focus on nothing else. After all, it is only in your own house where your inner judgment is cultivated. -  - At a certain point, however, we must leave the home and interact with the rest of the world, which is undoubtedly an inspiring place. There are so many amazing people and stories out there, but in the end, they’re only as amazing as we allow them to be. Envy is the greatest roadblock to recognizing this. - To do this effectively, there must be dialogue, which is the key to updating the norms we have around certain subjects. By arming ourselves with the capacity to talk about it freely, we finally have what it takes to fight the long battle against envy: the age-old cancer of the soul. - -