Don’t Envy, Do This Instead
By: Jun Wu
Tags: Lifestyle, Gratitude, Life Lessons, Self, Personal Growth

A story of triumph and motivation at the end of envy.

@sharonmccutcheon unsplash.com

Envy eats nothing, but its own heart — Proverb

Once upon a time, I envied people around me: friends who have bigger houses, friends who have bigger bank accounts, friends who have bigger families, and friends who have better jobs.

Look at all these material things everyone’s gathering!

Then, I look at everything I have. I see only my lack of a husband, my lack of multiple children, my lack of a house, my lack of a professional job and my lack of a big bank account.

Focusing on lack will literally kill you mentally. This is why envy just eats away at your own heart.

When I was working in my Wall Street job, I seemingly had it all as a single professional woman. I took fancy vacations, ate in fancy restaurants and lived in a fancy condo. During that time, my envy of other people’s lives made me a person with only half a heart. The other half that holds real love, generosity and gratitude was taken over by envy.

What a sad state of affairs! When I wasn’t ready for success and success shows up, I couldn’t appreciate it. I had no gratitude. I only had envy.

Envy tastes sour with bitterness at the end. With a lot of reflection, yoga and meditation, I soon realized that I had to move envy out of my heart. So, I began my self improvement journey.

I consciously changed myself, my circumstances and my goals for the better.

It turns out that the only way to stop envying other people is to simply taking actions at improving one’s self.

My lack of confidence was at the source of my envy.

Getting to the bottom of that, removing toxic people who fed it, removing myself from toxic environment that bred it, then putting myself on a path to healing, all took years of work.

But all that work and focus on this work removed all the envy from my heart.

Years later, I am surprised at how grateful I have become even with retaining very little of the material goods I carried from my time on Wall Street. It seems that constructing my family successfully with my son and coming out of PTSD/Depression gave me the confidence I never had. I am looking back and appreciating myself for not giving up.

So, I keep moving.

When I started on Medium, there are a lot of reasons to envy other writers who have made it. I could look at their followers, look at their MPP amounts and look at the accolades they receive for their writing.

But, I had no envy.

Instead, I simply focused on my own journey on Medium. I routinely read great writers who I admired on Medium. I learned from them. I am immensely grateful for those lessons.

The reason I had no envy was simply that everyday I took actions to improve my mindset, my circumstances and my writing.

It’s not even the fact that I hope that someday I will become a good writer like those good writers I read. It’s actually the gratefulness I have for just being on the same platform and going through the same process of writing as they do everyday.

The sharing of our journeys together as people helped me appreciate my own personal story and maintain focus on my own personal story.

So, I give you the key to stop envy once and for all. Keep moving in life as much as you can: learn, play, love, and laugh. Life is entirely in those small moments. Make a goal of writing one story that you are proud of each week. Make a goal to laugh out loud once per a day. Make a goal of loving someone with all your heart through the nitty gritty.

Those goals add richness into your life’s bank account.

Each day, you are collecting experiences that fill your soul. In these experiences, you will discover more of your true self. That is worth more than all the houses, fancy jobs, fancy cars and fancy vacations in the world.