Using Envy Appropriately

“Ever tried, ever failed, try again, fail better.” -Samuel Beckett

There was an article that I read in the Wall Street Journal, dated April 26-27, 2014 that got my attention. In that particular article, there was a discussion about envy, resentment and motivation. It was pointed out that for example, in Facebook there are many posts about showing off, getting promotions, going to parties, having vacations in addition to many unaffordable activities. In a study last August, researchers from the University Michigan found that the more people used Facebook, the less satisfied they were with their lives. Not only that, in another Facebook study, researchers found that social media users exhibited more rampant envy.

Envy can be classified as either malicious or benign. An individual person can either be motivated by another person’s success and strive to emulate it or employ putting down that person’s success-perhaps a rationalization about the advantage person in some sort of distorted comparison. This suggests that envy can either be a personal motivator in a positive way, or hinder the individual in a negative and self-defeating way.

A 2011 study published in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, found that when the researchers triggered feelings of benign envy as opposed to malicious envy in their subjects, these university students were motivated to want to study more and perform better on a test measuring creativity and intelligence.

So perhaps instead of having negative thoughts, envy and a poor me attitude, it might be better to ask oneself “what’s holding me back? I can perform too.” Once again, this article implies that it is important to know oneself and instead of externalizing or rationalizing one is likely to be better off with self-reflection and then changing the negative thoughts or ideas. More than likely it is the individual that holds himself back as opposed to something external. I am clearly not putting down Facebook. I’m using Facebook to illustrate that if you’re having difficulty with envy, look inside.

Perhaps, in a later post, I might address the implications and dynamics of “a   showing off attitude used by many in social media.”

In the meantime, for your health keep moving, smiling, laughing, bonding, appreciating and loving.