Licking the Razor's Edge (2015)

#02) ENVY SOLIDIFIES SADNESS …
Deep-seated Happiness – first & foremost – requires that we choose to be grateful for our
lives. And it is no surprise that this gratitude cannot exist alongside feelings of envy.
Indeed, we cannot feel thankful for anything we do have, while simultaneously desiring
anything that we do not. And this is as true for our thoughts about who we are as it is for
our beliefs about what we own …
From a very early age, many of us are taught to compare ourselves to others. As opposed
to recognizing our unique personal gifts (and appreciating them – and thereby our Selves
– by using them to Care for others), we are instead encouraged to correct our “faults” &
identify our “weaknesses”. We yearn not only for what others have, but also wish we
were as “wonderful” or talented as they appear to be.
As a consequence of these thoughts, a ridicule of others & a rejection of self begin to
manipulate our minds and dominate our days … and ripples of gratitude are replaced by
waves of melancholy. In our newly jaded eyes, successful strangers become enemies,
successful friends become potential competitors, and successful enemies become evil
incarnate.
As a consequence, our relationships – all of them, the good as well as the bad – become
brittle and begin to crumble. We judge our own lives as “deficient” in comparison to the
lives of those deemed to be “more successful” or “more fortunate”, and we label most
everyone else as “outcasts” — “deficient” people, leading lives less worthy than our own.
And in the process, we lose touch with everything that is deep and intimate and Meaningfull
in life … Sadness enters through envy’s open door, takes up residence in our minds,
and eventually infests everything we do and feel.
“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” ~ unknown
“Envy is the religion of the mediocre. It comforts us first, then it soothes our worries, and
finally it rots our very souls, allowing us to justify our petty meanness and superficial
greed until we – after labeling them anew as ‘justice’ & ‘success’ — believe those vices
to be virtues.” ~ inspired by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
“You can feel anything, and yet I guarantee you that if you allow yourself to feel envy
and then to swim in it, that envy will destroy you and the people around you … I can
assure you that once you give yourself to envy, you will be eaten alive.”
~ inspired by C. Joybell C.
“Lust is our newfound way of life. Envy is just a nudge towards another sale. Even in our
relationships we consume each other, each of us looking for what we can get out of the
other. Our appetites are often satisfied at the expense of those around us. In a dog-eatdog
world we lose the biggest part of our humanity.” ~ inspired by Jon Forman
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