While browsing through the shelves of my local library, I came across a book with a rather unique name. It instantly caught my attention and I was curious to sift through the pages. The book was called 'The Difficulty of being Good by Gurucharan Das'.(Before I dive into the deep end of the pool, I must let you know that this is an excellent book and I would recommend it to people who like thought provoking and insightful pros with a flavor of Indian mythology.)
Envy is a normal human feeling. It has a universal appeal, there is nobody who doesn't suffer from envy. Some hide it and others show it openly.
And 'hypocritical envy' is considered more dangerous than open and honest envy. So, how do you go about dealing with such a raw, intense emotion you may ask?Well the world is not devoid of inequalities and it is these
inequalities that causes the feeling and emotions of envy in a human being. And in most
cases envy is an evil that consumes us and blinds us from rationality and makes us attack and be mean to people around us. So in
this uneven world what is the best way to deal with envy?
Ancient Greeks had a very unique
way to deal with envy. They believed that people who are more prosperous, high in popularity or successful in anything which could cause envy in others needs to
be ostracized – banished or excluded by popular vote. Indians also had a way to
deal with envy. Indians believed that nobody will be envious of worldly success
if you renounce it. And hope for compensation in another world. Buddha was
greatest example of this. Chinese dealt with it by being excessively and
hypocritically modest and sought to disparage their achievements.
Despite giving envy a negative tag up till now, there is a
positive side to it as well. It all lies on how one perceives it. One can
either be envious to other people and create eternal sickness or foster healthy competitive spirit.
Duryodhana choose the earlier. He should have bettered himself without having the malicious desire to deprive the Pandavas of their possession. This form of envy is called graciousness or benign envy. On the other hand, Dronacharyya exploited envy between the Pandavas & Kauravas to raise the level of their performance. If one recalls the holocaust of jews by Hitler, it is a classic example of bad envy. Jews became the victim of general envy by the unsuccessful Germans and Austrians. They envied the success of the tiny population of Jewish community. There are number of examples of both kinds of envy in the world. The real question is how to avoid it ???
Duryodhana choose the earlier. He should have bettered himself without having the malicious desire to deprive the Pandavas of their possession. This form of envy is called graciousness or benign envy. On the other hand, Dronacharyya exploited envy between the Pandavas & Kauravas to raise the level of their performance. If one recalls the holocaust of jews by Hitler, it is a classic example of bad envy. Jews became the victim of general envy by the unsuccessful Germans and Austrians. They envied the success of the tiny population of Jewish community. There are number of examples of both kinds of envy in the world. The real question is how to avoid it ???
Before diving right into this, I would like to talk about an
Indian origin story – The Ambani Brothers. After their father’s death, envious tendencies crept between the brothers. And it was the perfect
intervention by their mother which saved the massive empire. Otherwise the envy would have engulfed the whole empire of Dhirubhai Ambani. After the empire
was divided equally between the brothers, it was 'benign envy' that led to
competitiveness between the two and today both feature in the top 10 billionaires
in the World. However, the point to be noted here is that apart from
specific cases like this,there are general envious tendencies that exist
in society. How to deal with it?
The best way to deal with envy is to inculcate a habit of giving back. When I say giving back, I mean when the rich and flamboyant help and aid the lesser off sections of the community, the rift with lessen and envy will slowly fade away. For eg. The Ambanis are less envied till the time they are creating
more and more jobs and paying taxes.
Before I end this post on “Envy”, I would like to talk about
socialism. It is a wide spread notion that socialism forces equality in society
and hence it lessens envy. However, I believe it is simply the opposite in
reality. What Socialism does is lessens the differences among people. The
fewer the differences results in fewer standards to measure one against. Thus there are more chances of people at same
level to compare themselves with each other and getting envious over small things. Hence Envy is the vice
of socialism.
This is just single chapter in this book which focused on envy. Go grab the book and you will be encounter many such thought provoking excerpts within the book.
This is just single chapter in this book which focused on envy. Go grab the book and you will be encounter many such thought provoking excerpts within the book.
