I admit that I'm envious or rather jealous of people who became successful and popular at an early age. I envy those who did not live the regular life and were able to climb their way to the top. But the kind of envy that I have is the healthy kind. I don't pull these people down- I'm envious because I want to be like them. It's weird to say that I'm envious of people who inspire me

On the other hand, I could also be envious of people who never went through hardships (especially financial hardships) and who were sheltered from reality. Comparison could be unhealthy for me

@Som

That was a good quote. Thanks for the translation.

Jordan Peterson’s quote went like this, „Well I think there are two things. You should first figure out who to compare yourself to. And I think the best person to compare yourself to is who you were yesterday, and not someone else today. And the reason for that is, you don’t know anything about the person you are comparing yourself to, really. Like one of the things I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t take much discussion with someone, no matter how successful they are, you scratch the surface and you find out that their life consists of trouble and suffering in proportions you can hardly imagine. Almost everyone is dealing with serious problems, personal problems, or problems in their family. I suppose it’s better to be rich and miserable than to be poor and miserable, but you know misery is universal. And, so what you’re comparing yourself to, if you are envious, is an illusion, and it’s not a helpful illusion. It’s not a fair race to be racing against someone else, but it is a fair race to be racing against yourself. You could be slightly better than you are, and the thing about that, and that is so cool, and I think the psychological literature really indicates this, shows that slow incremental improvement from your initial baseline can take you places you couldn’t possibly imagine, and envy is only an impediment to that, and an illusory impediment too, because those other people don’t have it as good as you think they do.“

i thought that was pretty profound.

No. But if someone asks me why, I have no logical answer except possibly that my brain was born incapable of that neural circuitry. I could justify by saying that we only see what people want to show publicly without ever knowing their inner insecurities, fears and problems, never knowing if they might be envious of me instead, but I won't. If I tried to rationalize, it would go something like this:

Humans are genetically programmed as a chronically dissatisfied species. We are never happy with what we have, but always want what we don't have. It's also the root cause for greed, because we never have enough and there is no end to wanting more. When we see someone who has what we dearly want but don't or can't have, envy or jealousy is the result. If someone can get a handle on their greed, envy is automatically controlled.

There's an ancient verse in one of the Hindu texts called ishopanishad:

Envy is natural sometimes, we are human but I must agree that to be envious of famous people or people that we barely know will not do us any good. Why? Their life is far from perfect. I know some celebrities who spoke about the perils of fame when they get asked whether they are tired. Most of them said that if not for their job, they would not open their lives for the whole world to see. That is why celebrities experience depression and some even lead to a devastating end. If you know the 27 CLUB as they call it..these are the celebrities that are gone to soon, fame, fortune is a double edge sword.

Yes, that’s one of the reasons why I’m here. When I see my all my colleagues communicate well in English but I can’t blend in because of my poor English. Therefore I try to learn it even with a slow speed. I think somehow envy is necessary. It’s a springboard to improve myself, to learn more about people’s good things. But I don’t want to build a vast array of unnecessary wants or create a preoccupation. There is never enough so envy should be selective. I want things that I would be able to have in my current situation. It’s not too big too far from my reach.