Milena Moser on green envy: underrated feelings

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Bad feelings are called that because they feel bad. Before we hurt others, let’s ruin our own day. Or rather, a sleepless night when monsters crawl out from under the bed. For example, green envy. It grows like mold on the mossy soil of comparison. Comparing yourself to others is one of the surest and most direct paths to unhappiness. And at the same time, this is one of the most primitive human impulses.

Dante already reserved a level for the envious in his Inferno. Since the invention and spread of social networks, it has been impossible to avoid this. We no longer compare ourselves only to our neighbors, but also to people we will never know, who may not even exist. Meanwhile, there is already a number of new studies on this topic, diagnoses and theories.

Green envy is experiencing a renaissance – but is it being used and valued correctly? Don’t all these negative, unpleasant, disapproving feelings also have a valuable function?

For example, I physically remember that burning, burning envy that I experienced in my youth. It flooded me every time I walked into a bookstore and saw new titles on display. Why them and not me, I thought. I want the same thing they want: I want to publish a book. And I want to see him lying on this table.

In my imagination, I would sometimes pick up a table and knock it over like a lost superhero, but in reality I was just biting my bottom lip until it bled.

Envy didn’t turn my life into hell, but it bothered me. On the other hand, it also gave me the strength I needed to persevere year after year. His burn created energy that propelled me forward. Without him, I am sure today, despondency would have prevailed. Envy showed me what I really wanted and how badly I wanted it. Because I noticed him. Because I didn’t suppress it. Because then he would become really dangerous. Not only me, but others too.

Suppressed envy quickly turns into resentment, and then into hatred. The increasingly unbridled anger throughout the world against all who allow themselves to think, act, feel and love differently than we do is the result of repressed envy. Out of envy of these others who allow themselves to live what we do not allow ourselves, what we do not trust, what we have given up.

Today I am grateful for my envy, no matter how unpleasant his company was then. And I pay attention when I hear him purring under the bed.

I recently admitted to two of my peers that sometimes I envy them a little – not flaming, not burning, rather thoughtful, but still. I envy them that they don’t have to worry about anyone but themselves, that they can say that now is their time. It took me a lot of effort to admit this. I didn’t like it. But my friends just nodded, they understood, they had similar feelings.

It felt good to say them. Monsters pulled out from under the bed usually turn out to be harmless in daylight: a crumpled blanket, a forgotten sock, a box without a lid.

Source: Blick