Envy - The green eyed monster

We are few days past Christmas and wanted to publish this article a bit before the festive period, however at some point I thought, it is better not to ruin the vibes of the Christmas time.

Well the topic is a rather unusual one in minimalist circles, but wanted to share my thoughts of envy and jealousy, the green eyed devil or monster as you prefer.

You might haven’t heard of the expression, but back in the old days, virtuous were associated with colours and the colour of envy is green, described in William Shakespeare’s tragedy - Othello in the following quote;

'O, beware my lord of jealousy./It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock/The meat it feeds on. '

As early as 1603 and let’s do not forget that the phrase most likely is stemming from much earlier. The green eyed monster of jealousy is also a cardinal sin, one of the seven deadly sins which is coming from the Roman Catholic theology.

The reason I wanted to share my thoughts on envy and jealousy is that I believe it is incredibly present in our current world, where we are constantly subject of marketing campaigns and information influx on the newest things, gadgets, holiday destinations and feelings that brands are representing. Jealousy is overly present during the festive period, which is overwhelming and driving a large part of the society into discomfort, envy and depression.

As Buddha put it;

“He who envies others, does not obtain peace of mind.'“

This quote right up here is the reason why I wanted to share my thoughts about envy, because I do believe minimalism, a tool, to minimise our distractions to free up our minds, clear our thoughts and achieve equilibrium with our inner selves, to obtain peace within is only possible if we are getting rid of envy and jealousy.

I am not too sure if it is truly possible to free ourselves of envy in entirety, but sure about one thing, that at least we must strive to not be envious.

The Christmas period is definitely the most energy draining part of the year where we can feel the most overwhelmed and jealous of others, their gifts, their Christmas tree, their parties so on and on. Social media definitely over exaggerating this experience with the stories, pictures, videos of pretentiously perfect angles of the lives of others, a mirror where everything seem to be perfect, a world, an image which make us feel a bit down, a bit envious.

Awareness of jealousy is very important, counting others blessings make us forget how much blessings we have in our lives, focusing on the positives are always taking the same effort as being negative, so why not trying to uplift ourselves? Counting our blessings simply helping us to value everything we have in our lives, rather than contemplating on why we are disadvantaged.

Realistically, if we are looking at the bigger picture, we have always more reason to be happy and feeling content than the other way around, if you are reading this article, it means, you have internet access, potentially electricity, very likely you have access to basic needs and I didn’t mention anything else, but you are already better off than half of the world’s population at this point, you are clearly a winner.

The less is more.

Yours sincerely

To/Minimal