In which Wolf explains the important difference between envy and jealousy, and why dragons are no fun at parties. Watch this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/9m-Moru7Ed8
OK, so a three days ago I told you why it’s OK to be ignorant. And yesterday I told you it’s OK to be selfish. So what’s my evil plan for today? I’m going to show you that it’s OK to feel envy.
In fact, it’s more than OK— it’s healthy!
Like so many words in English, “envy” is subtle. Most people use it interchangeably with the word “jealousy.” But you know, if there are two different words for the exact same thing, you probably don’t need two words. The key here is that they don’t mean the same thing at all.
Recall how I’ve said in previous videos that all emotions have a purpose. The examples I gave were: anger is the drive to justice, fear is the drive to defense, sadness is the drive to adapt, disgust is the drive to purity, and joy is the drive to meaning.
Envy and jealousy also represent drives, but before I name them directly, think about this idea: in fantasy stories, you often have a dragon guarding a hoard of treasure. It’s usually stolen treasure, but of course the dragon doesn’t see it that way. Dragons have a habit of thinking that anything that’s not nailed down is theirs, and anything that they can pry loose while simultaneously frying the “owner” is not nailed down. Anyway, the dragon’s got the treasure, and they’re not giving it back without a fight.
Now, with behavior like that you might say that dragons jealously guard their treasure, and you’d be right. This is a perfect example of jealousy. You look at that treasure sideways, and the dragon’s going to show you how possessive it really is.
OK, now listen to this. “The dragon sat upon the huge pile of gold, enviously guarding its treasure.” Hmm, that didn’t sound right at all. If “jealousy” and “envy” meant the same thing, you could just replace one with the other and it would work. But it doesn’t. Why? Because you can only feel jealous over something you either possess, or feel entitled to even if you don’t technically possess it. Jealous is the feeling we get when one of our existing possessions is threatened. In that sense its related to fear: we are driven to defend our possessions. Jealousy also gets a bad rap, but when you think about it, if you’re not opposed to ownership of property, then you tend to protect and maintain the property that you value. And you’re likely to behave in a rather dragon-like way when a burglar comes snooping around your lair.
Most of the time, when we feel jealousy it’s because something we feel is rightly ours is over there having fun with that other person who isn’t nearly good enough for them! Ahem. The thing here is that jealousy isn’t only defense of what we have right now in our dragon-like claws, it’s the desire to take what is or should have been ours. This is where jealousy’s shadow side rears its ugly head: when we presume that we are the rightful possessor of something and are determined to take it away from the scumbag interloper, and we’re wrong: It’s not really ours to take or possess.
You know the old saying, “If you love something set it free, if it comes back it’s yours to keep, if it doesn’t come back it was never yours?” Well, forget that! If you’re jealous you’re not going to set it free because you own the thing. Even if “the thing” is a human being.
Envy, on the other hand, is something you can’t feel about something you possess. Envy is an emotion you can only feel about something you don’t yet possess. Envy is what we feel, for example, when we see our friend so happy that they got a great job, and we’re still looking for a halfway decent one. While jealousy is a felt sense of fear when something we possess is threatened, envy is a sense of lack over something we’d like to possess.
And importantly, we can feel envy when we don’t want to take away anything from anyone. We may be happy for our friend who’s gotten a new job, and also envious that they were able to build up the skill set that helped them land it. We might have a completely different set of professional skills and interests, and still feel envious. Why? Because we lack the joy of having a great job like they do, even if we’d never personally want the specific job they got.
So I’ve stated in previous videos that every emotion has a proper purpose. What’s the proper purpose of jealousy? As a form of fear, it’s a drive to defense. If you want to withdraw all your hard-earned cash, make a big pile of it and sleep on it like a dragon, you can do that. Just keep an eye open for burglars.
And what’s the proper purpose of envy? It’s the drive to achievement. Envy is actually aspirational. In its negative aspect it leads to bitterness, resentment, or apathy. But in its proper, positive aspect it’s a kind of hunger for something that you aspire to. If wealth for its own sake doesn’t interest you, you’re not likely to feel envious of someone’s wealth. But if you want to do great works of giving and charity, you might feel envious of a rich person’s ability to do those charitable works, which leads back to the thought, “Maybe I need to figure out how to make more money, so I can do more good in the world.”
Here’s the secret: jealousy is a zero-sum game: I possess it, and I jealously guard it. You threaten it or take it away, and I’m going to defend it because only one of us can actually possess it. In the zero-sum game of jealousy, there’s always a winner and a loser. But envy is non-zero-sum: I don’t want to possess your great job; I want my own great job; there’s no real reason why we can’t both have our own great jobs. Or, I admire your wonderful relationship with your spouse, and would like to be in a wonderful relationship of my own. The world is big enough for a win-win.
So when you find yourself feeling envy, you are at a crossroads of sorts. You could turn one way and descend into the shadow side of envy: bitterness and resentment, feeling bad about your ongoing lack. Or, you could turn the other and decide that this is your call to adventure, and that you’re going to figure out what it will take to achieve what you want (and of course the price you’re going to have to pay to get it; often measured in units of blood, sweat, and tears.)
Or, you could just let it go and move forward. In this world, we all possess some things and lack others. There’s no way to get rid of all lack, and its foolish to try, so sometimes we’re just going to feel it. Most of the time when we feel envy the best course is just to refocus on the path we’re already on, especially if it’s a worthy one. The important thing is to ensure that you are doing something worthwhile with your precious life energy. Unlike dragon’s gold, life energy is something that we get every morning, and we’ve spent it all by the evening. We can’t hoard it jealously, and there’s no point of being envious of someone else’s 24 hours, because we have the same 24 hours ourselves. The trick is to decide how to spend your treasure; the only thing that really is yours: your life.