Our own desire and positioning others in relation to it
Once a desire is set, John’s view of the world shifts a few degrees closer to that want. When he looks out and sees people, he will position them according to where they stand in relationship to his goalpost
Envy vs inspiration
You will be envious of those that have reached your desired state, but are not too far removed from it. Those that are too far out will be sources of inspiration, not envy.
What inspiration looks like
People like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, or Bill Gates will be in that green area. Their wealth is at an incomprehensible level in John’s mind, so instead of being envious of them, he will buy their biographies and seek to learn from them.
Who does envy target?
When does envy arise?
Here’s the strange thing: Envy is more likely to arise if you have not kept in touch with the rival during the course of this divergence
Assuming that it was easy
This is because we lack the insight to know just how long and winding the rival’s path actually was, and we instead assume that it was a neat trajectory from Point A to Point B
Regret and envy
Envy and regret are close cousins for this very reason.
Attention and envy
At its core, envy is about attention. The more you pay attention to the rival and what they’re doing, the greater your envy toward them will grow.
What happens when you pay attention to their path?
But by adopting their strategies, you also outsource your judgment to them, which means that you invest much of your precious attention to their path… Whenever you do this, you tend to lose confidence in your capabilities, and any loss of confidence usually opens the floodgates to envy.
Envy looks outward
Envy loves it when you’re in the “danger zone”, and that happens the more you look outward to solve your problems as opposed to inward.
Survivorship bias in social media
Any announcement of success on social media comes with a strong degree of survivorship bias , but since we don’t follow people that have failed at their endeavors, we tend not to see it.
The envy landscape
To recap, envy results from the interplay of three things: (1) A desired good, (2) A rival, and (3) A landscape of potential rivals.
Desire and envy
Innovative desires that linked to your inner scorecard
These are the innovative desires that cannot be externally validated or tied to another person’s progress, and are unique to your personal experiences. For example, “know more than I did yesterday” or “learn something interesting” are things that can only be tracked by your inner scorecard. No one can tell you how you’re doing, nor can they make you feel inadequate by numerically advertising their progress
The rival and the desired good
here’s a thought experiment worth running: If that person didn’t possess the desired good, what would you think about him/her? … Ultimately, you’ll realize that there is nothing about the rival as a whole that you want to become. You’re just envious of one particular element, which is that the rival possesses your desired good.
Focus back on your goals and desires
This reveals that you don’t want that person’s life, you just want what you desire. So rather than being envious of a person you don’t want to be in the first place, you can focus on fulfilling what you want for yourself.
Shoft the focus to what only you can do
But at its core, it’s about shifting every ounce of your attention toward the things that only you can do.
Work and self-awareness
Challenging work that stretches the mind. Mindfulness practices that require you to look within. These are the things that are impervious to external noise, and allow you to be fully immersed in your own headspace.
External validation and envy
Envy is such an enduring emotion because it lives in the one habit that defines the human condition: our desire for external validation.