The 4 most important types of envy

They say that envy is very bad and, in part, they are right. Suddenly we can say that there is an envy that we feel towards someone who is simply better than us and we would like to be like them and then we have a more toxic one, motivated by jealousy and even the desire not to wish that person well about whom we feel envy.

Depending on whom we feel this emotion towards, we can say that there are several types of envy. Next we will see what they are.

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The 4 main types of envy and their effects

Envy is a universal feeling. We may not like to admit it, but we all feel envy at some point in our lives. It is considered a negative feeling, which takes us away from happiness.

This bad reputation of envy can be seen worldwide, since most of the world's religions consider this experience as a vice, an unworthy and immoral behavior. It is not strange to find in the codes of conduct of most creeds to consider envy as a capital sin, as is the case in Christianity.

We should not consider the slightest feeling of envy as something inherently bad. In fact, feeling a little envy is natural. For example, a study conducted in 2015 found that about three-quarters of its participants admitted to being envious. towards someone in the last year, whether the person they envied was close or an acquaintance with whom they had little relationship.

For this reason, first of all, it is important to highlight the idea that you can really talk about two types of envy: one innocent and the other harmful.

The innocent would be the one we feel when someone we know seems to have better luck than us and we would like to be like him or her, such as seeing that you have a better salary, a beautiful body or speak several languages.

Instead, the harmful is the one that corrodes us, that obsesses us with the achievements of others, which makes us think so much about that person that it prevents us from continuing with our lives. It is a toxic envy, harmful to our health and, if it gets out of hand, it may even harmful to the person we are envious of.

You cannot be happy if you feel a corrosive envy for the achievements of others or for how others are. If the success of others corrodes us, we can never feel satisfied with how we are. Whether we are envious people or not, the first thing we have to do to recognize that we are envious is to know how to differentiate between the types of envy that exist. Naturally, envy is not an easy thing to correct, but if you know what kind you are feeling, perhaps something can be done about it.

1. Envy towards the partner

Envy towards the partner is paradoxical, since at first it might seem rare. How can you feel such a bad emotion with that person you love and love yourself? How can the success of that person to whom we wish the best corrode us?

It is normal to feel a bit of envy towards the partner, as long as it is innocent and in the sense that “I wish I was as good as him / her”. However, the envy we want to talk about at this point is the bad one, the toxic and not at all innocent, the one that can feed such dangerous jealousy.

Unfortunately, there are cases in which people can be so envious of their lover's achievements that they even wish something bad would happen to him, something that would harm him. A toxicity point is acquired that can greatly damage the relationship, since wanting bad things to happen to your lover is not, in reality, love.

As a general rule, if someone feels this kind of envy towards her partner, that person will be toxic in other areas of her life. In fact, the only way in which a person can feel envy in her relationship is because, probably, he conceives her in terms of power relationship, that one is better than the other or that it has to be constantly demonstrated who is getting more successes.

If the other person achieves more, it is that she is the one who wears "the pants" in the relationship. Power is being questioned and that is when envy arises. Without entering into debates or controversies, it is common for this type of envy to occur more in men than in women, especially in heterosexual relationships.

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2. Envy towards friends

Envy towards friends is common, something similar to what happens with envy towards one's partner. Ideally, it should not happen, because we are supposed to wish our friends the best and rejoice in their achievements., but the truth is that we all feel that we deserve something more than our loved ones or we would like to have the same luck as them.

We all have a friend to whom life seems to smile every day. She has the best body, earns a lot of money, works what she wants, has an attractive partner, travels... Whatever it has is something that we, by the simple fact of not having it, corrodes us inside and produces envy.

Depending on the degree to which envy occurs and is manifested, it can become quite harmful among friends.. It is one thing to feel some envy because a friend has achieved something that he wanted and another is for us to feel that we are a shadow in our group of friends, that he or she is even the main protagonist of our lifetime.

Rarely does envy towards a friend exceed the threshold of being dangerous and obsessive, especially since there are always other friends who cheer us up a bit by smoothing out the rough edges. It is also thanks to those same friends who, seeing how they are, can make us feel better because we see that they do not have something to we do, which can raise our self-esteem a bit and understand that we all have our strengths and our weaknesses.

3. Envy towards peers

Envy towards colleagues, work or class, is much more common than the other two. This occurs more easily because it does not imply a close relationship, neither of love nor of friendship necessarily. Feeling envy towards someone with whom we have little relationship makes us feel less guilty, and we do not consider it harmful to our relationship with her because, directly, there is none.

Well managed, envy towards colleagues It can be something motivating, an incentive to try to stand out in what we are studying or in our job. If we are envious of someone who is better than us, we may be motivated to try our best. better of ourselves with the clear intention of surpassing him, of becoming what people feel envy.

However, if you do not know how to properly manage this envy, it can make us get the worst out of us, earning the enmity not only of the person we envy but also of the rest of classmates. Our obsession with that person who we believe is better than us, far from making us improve, harms our performance, making us even look bad.

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4. Envy towards successful people

Finally, we are envious of successful people, who actually can overlap with the rest of envies that we have seen. If it is done towards a complete stranger, this envy can be the least harmful for the person envied, such as a famous person, but it can be very hard for those who feel it.

The explanation of why it is especially painful for those who feel it is simple. A successful person will seldom be upset that someone is envious of him and tries to hurt him. The envious person can do little towards a famous person who lives miles from himFurthermore, the envied person is used to arouse envy wherever they go, so it is their daily bread. He doesn't suffer much from it.

On the other hand, the person who feels envy can suffer a lot because, whatever he does, he will never you will be able to reach that person so successful that his exploits and good luck make him corrode so much.

In case he does not learn how to manage his envy, the envious person will gradually feel hatred and resentment, emotions that far from motivating him to progressing in his personal life and trying to be happy will make him stubborn in the life of the person he envies, failing in the only life that should matter to him: yours.