What's age got to do with it?
Seventy-five percent of participants in a large US study this year reported experiencing envy in the past 12 months.
Authored by psychology professor Christine Harris from the University of California, it found that the young struggle the most with envy - especially around looks and romance, whereas financial security and occupation status are more common in the over 30s. The whole experience of envy appeared to decline with age.
It seems also that we tend to envy those in the same gender and age group, and friends rather than family. Not that families are immune from envy - just look at same sex sibling rivalries, or a careerist partner envying the closer relationship of the homemaker with the children, or a parent resenting and envying the freedom and youth of their offspring.
Compare and despair
Envy is feeling a need to have better, or be better, than others, and wanting what others have. It can tip into a type of voyeurism, which feeds a compulsive need to see what others have.
Another client of mine talked about being at a party in a friend's beautiful home a few weeks ago. She went home feeling disgruntled, poured herself a wine and went onto Facebook, where she looked at photos of friends with angelic babies, at couples frolicking in the waves of exotic beaches, and at the fabulous fashion and food and selfies of people she knew. They were all having fun and being successful.
She felt worse and worse as the evening went on.
As the saying goes, there is nothing new under the sun - especially as far human emotions go. Social media was not have been around in the 1950s, but in 1953 psychologist Leon Festinger coined the "social comparison" theory, arguing that we determine our own social and personal worth based on how we "stack up" against others.
Because of this, we never stop making self and other evaluations - be it our attractiveness, wealth, intelligence, or success.
We can look up to, or we can look down at, people. Either way, it is very natural to observe others to get a sense of ourselves.
Does envy have any use?
We are creatures of feeling and habit: trying to put a handbrake on envy is probably fruitless. If you feel it, you feel it. And when those feelings are not very conscious - or we try and push them away - they can become destructive.
Gossiping unkindly with others who are envious of the same person, or belittling someone else's happiness, or just having a sense of general discontentment and disappointment can result.
But, as with all the strong feelings we get, the green-eyed monster has evolved to assist us with survival - even if it seems to be getting in the way of getting on with life.
We know all too well that envy is related to competition and social comparison, and that that leads to self-evaluation. Which is a useful tool if channelled the right way.
It is important to cut yourself some slack before you attempt to turn your envy into something positive. As writer Gore Vidal quipped, "Every time a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies."
Hearing that, we chuckle with wry relief that this rather taboo feeling is named, and the echo chamber of the lonely silence of shame is temporarily muted.
Managing your envy
Pay close attention to where your envy flares up most ferociously. What could you improve and/or aspire to? A client told me recently that while he felt envy at his friend's account of his health kick and new vitality and shape, it strengthened his resolve to do this for himself.
Above all, acknowledge your envy, or it can become noxious. Sure, it gives you a kick in the right direction, but it can also make the festive cocktails taste rather bitter.
So here's wishing you a summer holiday cocktail of well deserved gluttony of self care and fun, with just the merest drop of envy to spice up your new year's resolutions.
- nzherald.co.nz
