Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

Addiction #32 – Freedom from ENVY
“When you look at someone and long for something that is not yours or that you cannot
have, you simply know deep inside that something is amiss. It’s an absence of self; a
profound loss of heartbeat.” ~ inspired by Nadege Richards
“Envy is a littleness of spirit, a distorted view which cannot see beyond itself, and, if it
does not occupy the entirety of consciousness, feels itself excluded.”
~ inspired by William Haslitt
“As a moth slowly gnaws a garment, so does envy consume a Soul.”
~ inspired by John Chrysostom
Envy is the resentment we feel when we lack another person’s perceived level of
achievement, status or wealth — and it can come as no surprise that all of us have felt
this emotion at one time or another in our lives. Indeed, our human minds are
programmed to acquire what others in our “herd” possess, our human bodies are
programmed to accumulate wealth in order to survive, and our human emotions are
manipulated by a mass media that is constantly inundating us with images of things that
we need to possess (yet most often do not yet have) in order to be happy.
Of course, the issue here is not whether we feel envious from time to time (most of us do
– at least on occasion), but rather whether or not we are addicted to our envious
resentments.
It is important to realize first & foremost that the envy mentioned in this article is more
than merely the commonplace coveting of our neighbor’s possessions or the dramatic
lusting over our neighbor’s partner. As with most of the addictions covered in this series,
envy affects our lives in many subtle yet powerful ways, many of them with which we
remain unfamiliar …
RECOGNIZING our own ADDICTION to ENVY
Envy is a quiet yet potent emotional cancer that adversely affects many areas of our lives,
and yet before we can cleanse our lives of its dis-ease, we must first identify where it has
taken hold. To help you do so, consider the following questions:
*Do you enjoy “myth-busting” news reports, or debunking the personal beliefs of others?
*Do you have ambitious goals?
*Do you feel like your life lacks Purpose?
*Do you discount or “downgrade” the worth of others after they are complimented?
*Are you disapproving of “cheats”, “criminals”, “idiots” or “losers”?
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