Why am I Envious of Others?
Envy isn’t an emotion most of us like to admit to. It feels unattractive, ungrateful, and mean-spirited, especially if we feel it in relation to someone we love, in the happiness of a deserving friend, or even in the enthusiasm or energy we see in our own adult child.
We tell ourselves we shouldn’t feel this way and remind ourselves of everything we already have. We scroll on, push the feeling away and try not to think about it.
But what if envy isn’t something to suppress?
What if it’s trying to tell us something important?
Freud believed that thoughts and feelings we push out of awareness don’t simply disappear. They continue to influence us from beneath the surface, often returning in different forms. Jung believed that whatever remains unconscious will continue asking for our attention until we are prepared to acknowledge it. Modern psychological therapies have arrived at much the same place. The more we avoid uncomfortable internal experiences, the more power they often seem to hold over us.
Perhaps envy is no different. Perhaps the problem isn’t that we feel envy; it’s that we don’t explore what our envy is telling us about ourselves.
One of the things I’ve noticed about midlife is that people often become envious of things they never expected to care about. The successful executive who suddenly envies a friend cycling across Europe. The solicitor who can’t stop thinking about the woman selling her pottery. The early retiree who envies her friend starting university in their sixties. Or, and this one is a bit closer to home, the therapist who finds herself longing to write rather than grow a larger practice.
At first glance, it looks as though we want someone else’s life, but this isn’t necessarily true.
I think envy is less about wanting what another person has and more about recognising something within yourself that is significant.
When I see somebody who has written a novel, I don’t really want their novel. I don’t want their life or their publishing contract. What stirs something in me is the reminder that creativity matters to me too. Writing has always been part of who I am, and when I neglect it, I notice. The feeling doesn’t disappear simply because work is busy or life is demanding. It waits patiently until I have enough space to hear it again.
I think this happens to many of us.
When we’re younger, our lives are understandably dominated by work, mortgages, children and responsibility. Those things matter, and they deserve our attention. But eventually, other parts of ourselves begin to ask to be noticed, maybe parts that were silenced or deprioritised as finances or responsibilities came to the fore. Sometimes it’s creativity. Sometimes it’s adventure. Sometimes it’s health.
I’ve worked with people who spent decades climbing the corporate ladder only to become fascinated by completing an Ironman or reaching a personal best in the gym. On the surface, it looks like another achievement to pursue. But I often wonder whether something deeper is happening. Perhaps after years of proving themselves through their work, they’re discovering a longing to feel physically strong, alive, and well.
For somebody else, the longing may be for family, friendship, community or quietness. Another person may discover an unexpected desire to paint, learn Italian, volunteer or finally travel. These longings don’t usually arrive out of nowhere.
More often, they’ve been there all along; they’ve simply been waiting on an imaginary shelf, waiting to be noticed.
This is why I think envy deserves a better rep. Rather than asking, ‘Why can’t I stop comparing myself?’ perhaps we might ask, ‘What part of me recognises itself in this person?’
The answer may have very little to do with the other person at all. Envy holds a clue to the person you are becoming or long to be.
Midlife often asks us to stop measuring success by what we’ve accumulated and begin paying attention to what is asking to be expressed. Perhaps the people we envy are not showing us what we’re missing, but rather reminding us of the parts of ourselves we’ve left waiting too long.
