How to distinguish white and black envy

The experience is not at all harmless. It turns off rational thinking and often leads to suspicion, hostility, and aggression. Especially for people with low self-esteem. They almost get sick, experience fear, anxiety, and even become depressed. This is a form of protection from confronting one’s own inferiority.

Cheerful people, generally satisfied with life, also experience envy. Only with them it is fleeting - as it came, it went away. It’s all about the same self-esteem: a self-confident person is able to control his feelings and not be too upset that some “charm” was not his.

Why people envy - the essence and roots of envy

The habit of comparing oneself with someone starts from childhood. In kindergarten we compare ourselves with toys, at school we compete in grades and outfits, and as we grow up, we strive for leadership in work, financial status, children’s success, etc.

In the process of comparing oneself with others, envy is born, accompanied by pride in oneself, negative emotions, anger and other manifestations .

But whatever the motive of envy, it is always a powerful factor for a person’s subsequent actions - for creation or destruction, depending on character, moral principles and, as they say, “to the extent of its depravity.”

Are all people envious?

The predisposition to envy is inherent in human nature. The degree of expression of envy varies. But at the same time, it cannot be said that there are individuals who do not at all have this feeling. If they say they don't envy someone, it may well be that deep down they have feelings of envy, but have learned to control it well.

During the period of preschool childhood, the child’s character is still being formed, so his envy can be short-lived. Provided proper upbringing and parents' reaction to momentary manifestations of envy, it will pass without a trace.

Younger schoolchildren know that envy is bad. This awareness forces them to hide their envy and control their own emotions. Through art therapy, role-playing games and educational conversations, you can teach your child not to envy.

Psychologists have found that envy is more common among boys and girls aged 15–20 years. This is due to puberty and the need of boys and girls to correspond to the reference group in terms of external attributes.

At the age of 21–30 years, envy concerns the professional and family spheres. If a woman is not married before the age of 30, she begins to doubt herself and envy her married friends. If a man cannot get a prestigious position, he is angry with himself and his unpresentable appearance, envying his prominent comrades.

After 30 years, the feeling of envy weakens, because at this age, as a rule, every person has certain achievements in life. If an individual fails to arrange his own life, envy turns into a mental disorder. Psychologists, psychotherapists and psychiatrists deal with such cases. People who are over 40 years old adapt to life and learn to control their envy.

As a rule, after 60 years the ardor of the most ardent envious people fades away.

Not everyone is able to admit their own envy, because everyone understands that this is a negative feeling that can put a person in an unfavorable light. To admit your own envy means to admit your inadequacy.

The real reasons for envy and where does envy come from?

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There are quite a few versions about the origins of this feeling. Some of them:

An innate, hereditary feeling that we inherited from our ancestors along with laziness at the genetic level. Supporters of this idea believe that envy helped primitive people strive for self-improvement.

According to scientists, the reasons for the appearance of envy are...

Hatred.
Hostility.
Arrogance and arrogance in character.
Fear of remaining a failure , of not achieving the goal.
Thirst for fame, wealth and power.
Self-disrespect.
Cowardice.
Stinginess and greed.
Personal beliefs also play a significant role in the emergence of envy . Lack of Faith does not contribute to self-restraint while observing the Commandments, one of which speaks specifically about envy.
Wrong upbringing. Teaching a child in this way for “educational” purposes, such as comparing him with other successful children, gives a completely opposite effect. Instead of striving to “become better, achieve more,” the child begins to feel inferior, and envy of other people’s successes settles in him forever.
Another reason for envy is that we have the opportunity to observe and evaluate our lives around the clock (with all the ups and downs), but as for other people’s lives, we only see their successes or, conversely, failures . Accordingly, we cannot try on someone else’s skin. As a result, the achievements of another person, for whom these victories may have cost very serious efforts and even losses, seem unreasonably large and undeserved to us (like us, who spend a lot of energy on fulfilling our next dream).

Without delving into scientific and pseudoscientific theories about the origins of envy, we can confidently say that the cause of any envy is clearly visible.

Destructive force

With any form of envy, a person cannot be in a good mood, because he feels inferior in comparison with another. He notes that someone is better than him, and why this happened does not matter. This is how the circumstances developed or the person himself is to blame for this, he still sees that he is lower, he is worse, and his self-esteem suffers from this. And this means that there is no strength to catch up with someone, much less overtake someone. There is a feeling of dissatisfaction with life, which can develop into depression. Your own shortcomings and inconsistency in one of the areas or in all at once become obvious.

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White envy, black envy - is envy harmful? How to overcome feelings of envy

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Any negative emotions (this has long been a proven fact) harm not only our mental, but also physical health.

Blood pressure rises.
The pulse quickens.
The functioning of the gastrointestinal tract is disrupted.
Vascular spasms , etc. occur.

Not to mention the fact that envy contributes to prolonged depression, as a result of which a person begins to feel completely unhappy and unsuccessful.

Envy contributes to the “clogging” of our subconscious. The command “Why don’t I have something like this!” is perceived by the subconscious as “It didn’t happen, no, and won’t happen at all!” That is, a feeling of envy of other people's goods programs us for a complete lack of chance in achieving any goals.
Envy is also vampirism in both directions. By envy, we send a negative energy message to a more successful person and, at the same time, to ourselves. Only the loss of our energy due to envy is many times greater. The more we envy, the weaker we become.
One of the most serious dangers of envy is acting in a state of passion. Starting from gossip and slander, ending with revenge and the use of physical force.

The saddest thing about the presence of envy in our lives is that few people think about fighting this source of negativity. As well as the fact that envy is one of the barriers to a truly happy life.

How to distinguish black envy from white - differences between white envy

In fact, the color of envy does not detract from its destructive properties. White and black envy are exclusively human inventions to justify their own feelings. Envy, as such, has no color.

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It is a source of negativity, and by definition cannot be “white and fluffy.” “White” envy is nothing more than joy for someone’s success. In all other cases, you shouldn’t entertain yourself with illusions: if, during other people’s victories, a worm in your soul begins to bite you (we’re not talking about “gnawing” at all), then this means this is the very classic envy. Therefore, to determine the difference between white and black envy, we will take as a basis the generally accepted concepts that black envy is a destructive force, and white envy does not bring any special problems to anyone. So what's the difference?

White envy is the “trying on” of other people’s achievements and the absence of negative feelings. Black envy is torment , a constant “itch” that pushes a person to certain actions.
White envy is a short-term outbreak that goes away on its own. It is incredibly difficult to get rid of black .
White envy promotes creation. Black envy is aimed only at destruction.
White envy is the engine of “progress” . By experiencing it, a person strives for self-improvement. Black envy depresses and gnaws at a person from the inside . He does not want to correct anything in his life. The only desire is for the object of envy to lose what he has.
White envy is not accompanied by hostility and anger - only joy for other people's successes. Black envy crowds out all positive traits and feelings and drowns a person in his own negativity.
It’s not a shame to admit to white envy; a person will never admit to black envy for anything and ever.

We can summarize with a simple conclusion: white envy is a kind of whip that spurs us on the path to success. Black envy, accompanied by hatred, kills any progress in the bud. As a result, while everyone is moving forward, the envious person is rolling back or, at best, marking time, looking at more successful people.

What is envy?

What is envy? This concept has many definitions. In Ushakov’s dictionary, for example, it is called the desire to possess what others have. From a scientific point of view, it is a socio-psychological complex of different models of human behavior, his feelings that arise towards people who are more successful, both materially and intangibly. Interestingly, envy can be a feeling and an emotion.

An emotion is considered when it arises on an unconscious level as a reaction to a certain action, the subject does not last long, leaves without a trace (does not leave a negative imprint on a person’s life). These emotions are not easy to hide from others, they are difficult to control, but the mood does not deteriorate for long. But if envy visits a person very often, then he becomes a slave to this feeling, into which the emotion develops. And it’s no longer easy to get rid of it, even with the help of specialists.

An envious person consciously lives with this destructive feeling, hiding it behind a mask of indifference. Such a person is actually not welcome in any society or company.

Is envy a bad feeling? How to get rid of envy?

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We cannot get rid of the envy of other people. Unfortunately, this does not depend on us. Although it is within our power to change our attitude to the situation. But you can and should fight your own envy. How? Of course, no one will give you a magic recipe, but regaining self-control and learning to manage your feelings is not so difficult.

Admit to yourself the fact of envy. As long as you lie to yourself that you “don’t give a damn and don’t care at all” about this other person’s car (wife, travel, wealth, talent, etc.), you will not be able to change the situation. By admitting to yourself, you become stronger and more sincere. And on top of everything else, you maintain your relationship with the object of envy.
Channel the energy of envy in the right direction. As soon as envy makes itself felt, stop and think about what you lack and what to do to achieve this goal.
Do some digging within yourself. Highlight your own strengths and advantages. Develop and improve what you already have the basis for. Remember that everyone is different. One “reveals” himself in his talent as a leader, another in the size of a yacht, a third in painting, etc. Achieve success in your field.
Remember that success doesn’t just happen to anyone on its own. Success is work, effort, the path to your goal. Luck is an extremely rare reason for success.
If you fail to achieve your goal, it means you are following the wrong path to it , or you have set the bar too high. Break one big task into several small steps.

And don’t forget to ask yourself the question: “ Do I even need what I envy so much?” "