ENVY

It is written that thou shalt not covet thy neighbours ass.

Envy breeds excellence.

I have never understood what people have against envy. Acting on it inappropriately is one thing but envy is what keeps us off our asses.

I think envy is probably the most powerful motivating force of the human condition, after the urge to copulate and reproduce.
Healthy competition, call it by another name if you will, the act of comparing yourself with others and seeking to emulate them or to better them, even to cheat them or steal from them, it is a fundamental motivating force of society. Isn't it?

Thoughts in mind do produce after their kind. When we continue to dwell on envy of what another enjoys that we (at least feel) we don't have it's possible we could steal, etc. to get these things, or become depressed or ill.

Maybe when we envy we could decide to love to pieces what we have and do the best we can with whatever that may be. Who knows what another's life is all about, regardless of what they have. Perhaps these envied people are miserable in other ways.

I think that envy is the motivation for good and bad actions. If someone's job inspires me to go and further my education and apply for a similar job, that's good, no?

As I read up I see others feel the same way and are much better at expressing themselves than I am.

I've never really wanted anything other people had other than happiness, and when I've been happy, they didn't have anything else I was particularly interested in. So envy's never been a motivator that really worked for me. At least in terms of material things.

when in life one reaches the 'realization' that contentment cannot be 'bought', the freedom bestowed by that fact is enormous.

'envy' is merely the manifestation of a misdirected sense of values; putting things (ussually erroneously thought of as possessions) ahead of relationships, and experiences (life).

After all, the most prosperous country in the world is founded on the belief that all men are created equal, and the only way that it could get withing reasonable equality was through struggle brought out by envy.