The Right Kind of Envy

A reader once reached out to me for some advice about her personal style and over time our conversation blossomed into a friendship.  Being much younger than me, I loved hearing about all the ways that her life was starting out and about all her plans and dreams.  Being a cheerleader for her as she got out there and made things happen was truly an honor and I am so glad that we met and I got to know her. 

 At one point in our fashion talks, the topic of a book called Lessons From Madame Chic:  20 Stylish Secrets I Learned While Living In Paris by Jennifer Scott came up.  My penpal loved it and it had influenced her in such a way that she highly recommended that I read it too.  So, I did.  And, I loved it!  If you haven't read it, I can as whole heartedly recommend it to you as my friend once did to me.  

Of all the life lessons and tips there was just one thing in the book that stuck out to me as perhaps being a little misleading.  Since I read it years ago, I can't give you an exact quote or a page number, but it went something like this if you dress up when everyone else is not, people will likely stare and take notice because they admire your style.  Hmmm.....  While this statement is true, it's only true about 1/3 to half the time in my experience.  The rest of the time it seems like people aren't admiring you for your style or any other good thing that you have; they hate you for it.  It's something I've never understood and have puzzeled over for many years.  

 

The other day a video popped up in my YouTube feed and as I was doing a task that lent itself rather nicely to having something to listen to while I worked, I clicked and listened.  The Youtuber's name is Kiana Docherty I don't know much about her or her message, but this video was recommended and the title of the video was "They Won't All Be Happy For You."  I was intrigued, so I clicked and listened.  The title kind of says it all, but Kiana goes on to explain that there are two kinds of envy-the positive kind that motivates you to change and the negative kind that makes you hate someone else for their success while pitying yourself.  

When you see someone achieve something Positive envy will say, Hey, Good for them and you know what?  They're no different from me, so I can do it too!  Negative Envy will say, It's not fair!  They're no different than me, why do they have something and I don't?  I deserve it, not them!  Negative envy says, I hate you.  Positive Envy says, I want to learn from you.  The truly difficult thing is that if you're the one who has had the positive change, you really can't control how people will react to it.  Some people will praise you and ask for advice; some people will suddenly hate you.

 As much as we all want to believe and hope that people around us will be happy for us when we achieve something big or small instead of being jealous of us, sometimes even the people closest to us react rather selfishly.  I say it is a selfish reaction because ultimately the way we handle and perceive the success of others is based upon our own perceptions of ourselves, on how much we either value or hate ourselves.  

A person who understands that they have value and worth will react to the success of others positively and say, either Good for You!  or, If you can do it, I can do it!  And consequently this person will either befriend those she admires or else, study them from afar and learn from them.  A person who has very low self esteem and does not value their worth sees their triumphs or blessings of others and responds with jealousy, insecurity, and contempt.  They disdain the successful person and either avoid or deride them in an attempt to bring them down to their level.   It's painful, it's disgusting, and it's all too common.  The most disheartening thing of all is that I've seen it work!  I've seen people who are having some measure of success get dragged back down by the jealousy of others because they thought it was about them and not the other person.

If I ever learn the secret to getting people to value themselves and see their worth, I will definitely let you know, because that's the best solution to this problem.  Unfortunately, I haven't solved this yet, so the very best I can do is warn you or anyone who is trying to do something to make their lives better that you will face adversity and criticism from people who don't want you to have better for yourself because they don't think they deserve better for themselves.  Just know that it will happen, that it's not about you, and that you must carry on with your hard work and ignore the critiques from jealous types.