An antidote to envy
moretothat.com
moretothat.com
I don't resent this person of course but in a way I am envious, yes. I know I have it in me to grind into building such a business for myself but the circumstances of my family make it so I'm the sole provider and I have a full-time high stakes job.
Like Charlie Munger said, "What good is envy? It’s the one sin you can’t have any fun at."
but he also said...
"Like Warren, I had a considerable passion to get rich, not because I wanted Ferraris – I wanted the independence. I desperately wanted it."
and so I'm envious. As I'm sure he was once.
The extreme version of course is becoming homeless. At which point we find out that true independence simply isn't available. As old Bob Dylan said, you gotta serve somebody.
This is misleading.
It's not about not wanting to serve someone. It's about how much you have to serve. Serving someone 90 hours per week at $15/hour with no benefits, vs serving someone 3 hours per week and making millions of dollars and being able to do two chicks at the same time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiuZIno6KPA Actually, there's a lot of wisdom in that video clip.
* You can probably trim your budget by 20%. I’ve talked with a couple folks who do this just by switching from a credit card to a debit card. Screw the rewards.
* Budgeting is the only way. It’s not near as terrible as people think. Just cut crap you won’t miss not having anyway. Be very disciplined.
* Track net worth and savings rate. There are lots of tools for this. I made https://fiers.co for myself - others use it too :). Personal capital is great if you are okay giving access to financial data.
* Avoid debt like the plague. Mortgages are okay but the bigger it is the longer you’ll be tied to a particular income.
* The value of time increases as you get older with a sharp uptick around 40. Given it takes 10-15 years of diligence to decouple your lifestyle and income - get started in your early 30s.
* It will take 10-15 years before you have financial independence. This doesn’t mean you will quit your job…but it does mean you have the freedom to do things that like that which aren’t so tied to you earning income to meet your goals.
* Shortcuts will just distract you and make your journey take longer.
I was also thinking about envy today, because we were reading the Torah portion where 10 Commandments were given and envy is the subject of at least one of them. It struck me that envy is given the same treatment as adultery, murder,idolatry, etc.
Why? Because real envy is a mind killer. You so resent what someone has that your mind doesn't turn to consider how you can get it for yourself, or why you may not be able to.
In your case it sounds like you've considered it, understood that you could do it but also have reasons not to. That sounds very rational to me, while envy paralyzes you and you become blind to what your actual capacity and options are - it becomes all about the other person.
PS the juxtaposition of "wisdom" with "subscribe for new posts and become a member" is amusing. Want enlightment? Then make sure to smash that subscribe button! Why not just share your wisdom without all those trappings?
I think what the article refers to "envy" is a complete lack of self-esteem. Envy is healthy when you acknowledge your limitations.
> But envy is one of the most pervasive problems in today’s world, especially as social media normalizes the successes of others, making you feel like you’re “underperforming” the average when in reality you’re being shown a highlight reel of outliers.
This isn't really "envy", or not on its own.
My understanding of the word is borne out by the formal definition, e.g., in Wiktionary (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/envy): “Resentful desire of something possessed by another or others (but not limited to material possessions).” That ‘resentful’ part is key to why I think that envy is (almost?) always negative. It is good to work with people whose skills you admire; if you envy their skills then you not only want to have those skills yourself, but resent that they have them.
I think I avoid envy by first believing that 'I' could have been anyone on the planet, but just happened to be 'me'. Given that as a starting point, do the most with what you have. Even then I don't do near close to the max, so I'm not in any position to complain or desire beyond my means which I haven't realized.
Interesting perspective, i like that a lot. How can I begrudge others things when I haven’t even maximized my own capability and or circumstances in life?
I want to be around people who have skills and qualities I would like to learn. I can't honestly say I envy any of them, though.
> In my case, writing these kinds of essays is my way of understanding myself. I don’t do it to build an audience or to seek recognition for them. I do it because I want to explore why I struggle with the things I struggle with, and why I love the things I love.
This is the kind of reason people should be writing blog posts for! Not for chasing engagement and getting dissatisfied with the viewer analytics ("no one's reading, what's the point?"). Ironically, reading this instantly made me subscribe to the author's newsletter.
Quoting what I said in a comment a year ago (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28592353):
> Who cares if no one is reading? You blog because you have something to express on the internet, not because you're seeking attention from others. Content creation for the sole purpose of views is incredibly superficial.
Well I understand that I am a failure at life. That doesn't help much.
I also caution that "not being successful in a rigged economic system" is not equal to failing at life.
People say this like it's a truism, but the notion that social media only shows successful people or is like a highlight reel of life, is possibly false. Unless your social circle is limited to tech founders or celebrities, most people live pretty mundane lives. https://greyenlightenment.com/2022/04/27/still-skeptical-abo...
I don't see what is wrong with envy per say. What is wrong with wanting more. Envy is a major motivating or driving force of getting better at life.
The article is missing the whole point of envy. Envy manifest for those around you that have it better than you. The coworker that started with you and ended up climbing positions faster and has a better salary. The photos of the weeding of an old crush. Is about someone being an step up and the what-ifs that would have made it so you had that now.
If you are start up founder yes, it makes sense being envious if you went in a round and someone got the investment you wanted; or an acquaintance is already retiring while you are still iterating on your 5th failure business. Envy adjust to the grandeur delusions people have. Tech founders and celebrities may be yours, but for most people those around them that have it better.
I certainly wasn't ready for my bout of depression and wished at the time that I knew myself better Talk therapy helped but it would have been a lot easier if I had examined my own motivations long before that.
But there's a good sentence for dealing with it, if you are envious of somebody else having something you can tell yourself: "I have something he doesn't have. I have _enough_."
Should aim for low level of envy where you know you want it but not with intense pain, which is hard to achieve
Envy, can't just be the result of not knowing who you are, can it? The former is a very specific emotion, and the latter is a nebulous statement of your self-awareness. At its heart, Envy has something to do with what you desire but do not possess while some other people do. It can't just be a lack of self-awareness.
What is the criteria for knowing who you are? Is it the realization that you should stop desiring anything which other people possess but you don't? That sounds more like a rationalization than an antidote.
When Bob loves Eve, and is henceforth envious of Tom who's Eve's current crush, does it mean that Bob is "looking beyond the contents of his mind into the collective pool of society"---being Eve, and ceasing to look into what make Bob uniquely Bob? And, if he instead start gazing into himself, he'll discover that he doesn't love Eve, that his burning desire is nothing but the outsourced definition of success? And at the end of the day, isn't the desire to _not be envious_ also part of the social norm, and hence an outsourced definition of success?
I feel that these kind of nebulous concepts (outsourcing definition of success, know thyself, societal norms, etc.) just don't match up to the reality. When I'm picturing the actual envious times which I or the people I know have experienced, they provide neither a sufficient framework to understand these emotions, nor the antidote, while often assuming that you need an antidote.
Usually you don't. Envy is unpleasant, makes you look bitter, but all in all, pretty common place. People don't show deep sympathy to you, but you know, they also don't judge you for it. It's also part of your motivation to better yourself. There's nothing wrong with wanting what other people want. What other people want, other people might have already gotten, and that could make you feel envy, and that is perfectly natural.
Recent years, especially on HN, I've read quite a few essays that seem to want to "turn off" negative emotions and regard the resulting tranquil state of mind as a virtue. It's like a new fad of doing psychological plastic surgery, where being envy or sad is like having a wrinkle which must be eradicated.
No wonder people signed up to be Cyberman in Doctor Who. Maybe that _is_ going to be the new trend. Fitter, happier, fond but not in love, nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate, nothing so childish.
I disagree with that. I'd rather live with the emotions, including anger, envy, jealousy, burning desires, or ranting, than to be, just, zen.
I think it is about what the final destination is. One could certainly carry all the emotions and be at peace with it. One could overcome all of those (zen) where non of those feeling register. Peace to me is the final goal and there are many ways to achieve it (and the path is internal examination).
and, unexplained, why wouldn't you still be envious of people who had all the advantages you didn't? It comes off a bit more like sour grapes.
Envy is a natural base human emotion, that's why it was put in the 10 commandments 6 or more thousand years ago. Don't deny you have it, we all do, acknowledge it for what it is, and use it to stimulate yourself to strive harder/better, or give up on what is unattainable and move on to more satisfying goals.
And btw, there are exceptionally good students just like there are exceptionally good athletes, without regard to their background. People, including lousy athletes, applaud good athletes. On HN, it's a constant drumbeat of "it's unfair to test me in my chosen field, it's unfair to look at my scores, it's unfair to judge me, just give ME the job, then I'll show you"
Well, one approach is to just accept agency for one's own choices and have some self-empathy. I understood that where more opportunity might have been there for me, I made choices that were sound to where I was at the time and these choices led me down a different path. Sometimes they look like wise choices in hindsight, and sometimes they look foolish but understandable in context. And then I make sure to find satisfaction in where I am, rather than where I might have been.
I think this level of laziness and lack of ambition is out of place on this board, but common in the general public.
I don't know of any heroic human that independently accomplishes without any assistance whatsoever. I do know of many accomplished humans that had small but important influences that enabled them, and I think that has taught me as an adult that I need to ensure kindness and generosity towards humans around me.