Envy usually comes from the lower

Hey, that was a joke. Everyone got envy once. My most recent time was when my childhood friend from Edu to Div, coming in and out of projects together, revealed his salary. Honestly, I got so green with envy. Jeez, it was much higher than mine. My feeling at that time was emotional and irritating. I was annoyed by everything, I could not sleep or eat well, I had no mood for working. Of course, it was just my inner feelings, but on the outside I still happily smiled:

– “Dude that's so high (ngon)”

But behind the cute drooling icon was thousands of why god why questions. Like: "Why his salary is higher than mine? Why is there such difference when our working times are the same? How did he ask the GL? What does he have that I don't?". 

Then I calmed myself down and thought: "He must had his time, the boss paid more attention to him, he got the good tasks, and knew how to work his way. I did the easier task, so of course I got the lower salary. The bosses' review was that I'm a smart and perceptive person. I don't like to climb high, let's not mind that!". 

Does it sound familiar to you? Look at your colleagues or classmates in high school, university, who started out the same as you and now they got their car and their house, how can I be indifferent? I had all kinds of questions in my mind: "He must have a rich family since he was not even that good? That guy only makes dirty cash with fat interest, so that's why he got rich that fast!". 

Someone told me that the deep-rooted reason for envy is the fear of seeing someone better than you. It keeps you thinking like what the author Somerset Maugham realized: "Our success is not enough, it lacks the failure of others." 

With little envy, people keep it to themselves and secretly talk down on others, but then it could burst into troubles, and you can easily spread gossips behind their back, or worse, sabotage them. I always think that it is a way of releasing "inner pain" to serve the thought of "at which point is he better than me".  

Then, you tried to gossip about that irritating person. It was no fun gossiping alone, and it's better to have some brothers and sisters on your side. At first strange, now familiar, the gossip is the present, with the ingredients all laid out, you just have to stir it up for the hotness. 

– Have you heard, I heard that he married into richness, his father-in-law gave him the house and the car, because how could he if he tried hard like us... 

– He was the dumba... He resat exams all the time during college, he only got lucky with destiny.

– She got so rich recently, she must be coupling up with some rich guy, because how could a person like her do it on her own. She seems pretty at first glance, but a witch in focus. The guys like her because her mouth was so skillful. 

– They are no good, they are only good at flattering the boss, their real work is like shit... 

….

The truth is, people always feel afraid when someone is richer, better and more successful than them... and they couldn't do anything about it. That's why they chose to make bad gossips about others to feel some soothing caress in their pain. Cowardice and self-consciousness make them unable to go "face-to-face" with the better ones but to find ways to knock them down. In other words, when the weak ego is being tormented by envy, they had no other way except for speading muds on the others with all kinds of reasons. 

Envy usually comes from the lower. Because peope are busy with their own position, nobody has enough free time to nitpick and shame others. Only those with no voice, ability or work to do use this way to lower others. 

Sadly, envy and gossiping don't make people better, but they only pull them into the deep mud and destroy them in one way or another. Like me in the story with the aforementioned colleague, those thoughts made me tired and exhausted. All in all, I got to admit, he did the harder tasks, because he was busy with learning new things. He was not sneaking his ways to the top, his social skills were better than mine, all colleagues like him and are willing to help him. He was praised for his skill of self-protrayal.  

Later on, I came to realize that, with that much amound of time, when he was working on himself, I was sitting there nitpicking and  getting furious. 

Envy can sometimes be considered as motivations to try hard, to ask yourself "why they can be better with the same starting point" as a motivation. Don't let envy transform into cheap acts. Because, "people who envy are even deeper in misery than any other miserable man. Because the greater others' happiness are, the deeper the sadness in you" - De Bazal.

Keep in mind that while you are gossiping the nonsense, the better ones are still working hard and trying their best to be happier, richer and better than you.

Long Nguyen