From the author: Is there a general recipe for success? - If you want to live long, work. Envy is a certain projection of a person’s mind that leads him to a judgment that another person has better, more beautiful, tastier, etc., this is a worry of the mind that another person has some benefits, things better than you. Envy belongs to absolutely every person, i.e. this is a certain function that somehow changes during life, and the task of each person is to find ways and methods to drain this anxiety of the mind and learn to balance it. I really like the definition of envy in Christianity: “Envy is the sadness of the soul about the well-being of one’s neighbor.” Envy is characteristic of almost all people, another thing is that during life many move away from this and people with enlightened consciousness lose this function, they do not have envy. Envy arises when a person does not have a certain self-sufficiency inside, and then he looks at the world around him, and he has a desire to own something better, more in this world. This is a function of the EGO. The EGO is always worried that something is missing. He needs more. Therefore, envy, of course, is a certain component of all people. This is a natural function. When you learn to manage your mind, your consciousness, you are not fooled by emotions and learn to manage them, then gradually this function is lost, decreases, and then goes away as unnecessary, because when you have self-sufficiency inside you, then you have everything. All people are jealous - this is the norm. This quality is inherent in all people. But envy, like everything in our life, has two sides of the coin: there are positive accents, and there are negative accents. The negative properties of envy are envy associated with pain. Why is this happening? Scientists who have studied the influence of envy on humans have found that in the human brain there are areas responsible for envy and gloating. It turned out that people who aroused envy in themselves activated the anterior cingulate cortex in their brain, a region or part of the brain that plays a key role in processing pain, i.e. envy and pain turned out to be physiological twins. It turns out that an envious person, even if he does not realize it, experiences real pain and suffering through envy. This is violence against oneself, violence against one’s soul. Envy is a type of mental pain. Thus, we can conclude that envy increases pain and increases suffering. We know and notice that people who have a heightened sense of envy are in constant irritation and anxiety, and, of course, they themselves suffer from this, launching their emotional background into a negative state. Envy is inherent in all people - it is not a disease. Another thing is that some forms of envy are pathological - those that lead to mental changes, paranoia, obsessive thoughts, ideas. Thus, envy may be a trigger for mental illness. The basis of envy includes positive and negative aspects. The positive aspect of this is that envy increases a person's level of ambition. If a person likes something that someone else has, but he does not have it, then a desire arises to own it, which motivates him to achieve his goals. According to genetic theory, envy belongs to the category of complex instincts. Like laziness, it is a superstructure of the instinct of self-preservation, contributing to the evolution of the species. Another good thing about envy. Envy is the engine of progress. We know this story with Lamborghini and Ferrari. When Lamborghini was jealous of Ferrari that he created such an amazing car, and this became a motive for him, a driver for creativity, new searches, solutions, etc. And he was able to fulfill his dream. Therefore, envy can be both a trigger for destructive and negative actions - not creative, but destructive (wars can start because of envy, some kind of destruction or inappropriate behavior can occur because of envy), and positivethe moment when envy stimulates and motivates action and activity. You can see the mechanism of this process, how activity is activated and tasks to improve efficiency are included. There is a hormone - oxytocin, which includes the activation of sexuality, activates the human hormonal system, which enhances attractiveness and sex appeal, and thereby activates the function of envy, because at the physiological level, a person’s activity increases, and in connection with this, the ambitious bar also increases, and a person’s activity is activated to achieve some results, bigger, better. Leadership and determination are not an effect of envy; a person either has it or doesn’t. Envy in this case may be a motivation to develop the ability to achieve something better than another. And not to become the first (because if you are the first, then there is always a second one who can overtake you), but to become the best, the only one on earth in your field of activity. If you have managed to extinguish the poison of envy and jealousy in yourself (jealousy is a consequence of envy, or one of its varieties), then you are able to free yourself from pain and suffering, and preserve your resource, mental strength and physical health to realize yourself, your intentions, your plans and goals. Envy is the black reverse of the purple cloak of pride. To tame envy you need to bind your pride, realize your desires and love. To love as Jesus Christ, the master of love, teaches to love - by giving, selflessly and selflessly. For when we love in giving, love in action, then we are protected by love itself. The more you give, the more remains. This is the law of love and it always operates without exception. Infatuation and love are two different things. True love is giving and includes completely different functions. True love is unconditional: the more you give, the more you remain. She lives according to completely different mechanisms and rules. And falling in love is a certain desire to possess the object of love, and then it activates envy. Envy is the dissatisfaction of the mind because you do not have what others have. The basis of envy is comparative characteristics: for someone it’s like this, but for me it’s different. Social basis of envy: envy is a state that arises as a result of comparison. This is repressed dissatisfaction with oneself. The color of envy, from contempt to hatred, depends on a bunch of inferiority complexes. Envy is the other side of pride and a sense of superiority; they have the same roots. In sick people, autistic people, and people with downs, the form of awareness is dulled and the mind does not compare. And these people live a fairly calm, balanced life precisely because they are satisfied with everything as it is. An enlightened person is one with the same form of consciousness without comparative mechanisms, but only came to this in other ways, not through physiological disorders, but through work on his own consciousness. Envy is a comparative characteristic. And if a person improves himself and includes a certain self-sufficiency in the inner world, then there is no need to envy, because he has harmony and peace within himself, he likes everything and is satisfied with everything. And if he doesn’t like something and is not satisfied with something, then he achieves this by improving himself and achieving it. Who is more likely to envy men or women? A woman’s emotionality is 8 times more active than a man’s, which is why a woman’s form of envy is more pronounced, more outwardly manifested and can be included in greater aspects. Because the variety that a woman wants to own is much larger, higher, brighter, more interesting. Women and men envy differently. Women are very expressive and emotional. And men can be jealous, but keep it to themselves, raising a certain bar accordingly, structuring goals and objectives in order to achieve results. Men's envy is most often productive, i.e. productive in terms of achieving results. Female envy is often destructive, because the woman is jealous of her emotionalsphere, not the mind, and this leads to negativity and destruction either to the object of envy, or destroys one’s psyche. The sphere of a woman’s life is very much connected with how she perceives the world through her eyes, and therefore a woman envyes more some external forms: what is more characteristic of her, what she likes more, what includes her more, i.e. some bright things and often these are things from the material world. Men, since they have a logical, structural mindset, most often envy the success of other men or some kind of innovation, genius, i.e. something that is connected with the mind, with actions, with realization and with some masculine functions. Why do people envy successful rich people? Most people are designed in such a way that they see only that side of the coin and the picture that is on the surface. They don't see what's behind a person's success. And behind this lies a colossal amount of work, a huge amount of time spent on being successful. The great desire and determination of these people is something people for some reason don’t want to see. But they see everything that success has created and given to this person: villas, yachts, planes, diamonds, fur coats, etc. All this external surroundings. It is surprising that for many people who have achieved a certain success in their lives and a certain purpose, all this becomes not so important, when this is what is important to everyone around them. And then an instinctive feeling of envy awakens; people also want to live, but for some reason do nothing. This is definitely a skew in the world. It doesn't happen that way. There is an opinion: “If people envy you, it means you are living correctly, it means you are moving in the right direction.” Often people have a negative attitude towards almost any famous, noticeable personality, thereby justifying their inability to succeed in this life. A person who has succeeded and has everything - he had enough intelligence, strength, determination, and energy to realize this. The easiest way is to criticize and thereby hide your inability to accomplish something, leave something here on Earth, and develop as a person, as a professional. There is black envy, there is white envy. Black envy was first identified by the philosopher Kant. When a person envyes and gloats, such envy has a destructive aspect both for the person who envies and for the one who is envied. White envy is when we are happy for people, but we also want it to be like that for us. This is also envy, but we do not carry any negative negative meaning through this envy. There is hypertrophied envy, which leads to the destruction of first the human psyche, then physics, i.e. his physiological and social state. The more a person improves himself and his consciousness in this world, the more the scale of envy decreases. By improving yourself you can achieve any results. I really like V.M.’s phrase. Lyubarova: “Nobody owes you anything, you don’t owe anyone anything, but you can take it all yourself.” And when you focus on yourself, on improving yourself and on your own self-sufficiency, envy drops to zero, because you don’t waste resources, emotions, or your life on it, but spend it all on achieving goals in your own life. How is envy born? It all starts with an innocent comparison of oneself with others. Why do we compare ourselves to others? Everything happens due to the lack of self-sufficiency, adequate and correct perception of oneself, this world and oneself in this world. This, in turn, is born from dislike, from the absence of love. In childhood there was no analogue of creative, sober, sensible love. The perception of the world and oneself begins in childhood: love for oneself, one’s neighbor, and the world. To learn to envy in a good way, you need to grow love in yourself. First grow self-love, and then grow love in yourself. Then you will have a desire to achieve, to receive something, but you will rejoice in the fact that others are also doing well, and the other side of the coin of envy (jealousy and gloating) fades into the background. Envy remains, but remains white.