Driving Force

 

                                              (image: quotefancy,com)

An kasina amoy nagbuhi sa ija kayag!

In the bestselling book of Mark Manson “Everything is F*cked,” he mentioned that hopelessness is the root of anxiety, mental illness and the cause of all addiction. Delusion, addiction, and obsession – these are all the mind’s desperate and compulsive attempts at generating hope...”

So with envy.

When a person desires the physical attributes and material possessions of others, it emanates a spark to do something to acquire such attributes and things. This will propel the person’s interest to strive, or if skewed, to do such in a wrong or illegal manner.

Clinical psychologist Josh Gressel (2017) mentioned you can make envy as a primary emotion that you can use for your growth. At its most basic, to envy is to want something that someone else has and that you think you lack. Self-acceptance may be the most important step of all to keep you on the envy treadmill.

By reframing envy as a signal for potential growth rather than a source of resentment, an individual can channel this emotion constructively. For instance, instead of begrudging a colleague's success, one can analyze the skills or strategies that contributed to their achievements and strive to emulate or adapt these for personal development.

This transformative approach involves self-reflection and a proactive attitude, where envy becomes a rubric for setting higher standards and pursuing continuous improvement. In essence, by understanding and redirecting the energy behind envy, it becomes a valuable tool for enhancing one's capabilities and achieving greater fulfilment.

Envy is often rooted in low self-esteem – sometimes from very early unmet childhood needs where the person feels inherently not good enough. An envious person may frequently ‘compare and despair’ and find themselves wanting. They feel deficient in themselves and have a constant hunger to fill that deficiency (Dempsey, 2022).

Without allowing the thinking process to have its deepened flow and with the pressing distractions the mind is experiencing, one can NOT proceed to self-assessment.

By cultivating self-awareness, we can harness envy as a positive motivator instead of allowing it to remain as a negative emotion.