Having recently read several books on happiness, it seems clear that avoiding negative emotions and favoring positive emotions is a good strategy for a happier life. Of all the negative emotions, envy is often described as the worst – a disease of the soul.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines envy as “painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage”. Envy is closely related to jealousy and depending on who you ask, they are either exact synonyms, totally different words, or close to each other with some degree of semantic overlap and some differences.

In his book Conquest of Happiness, Bertrand Russell devotes an entire chapter on envy. He writes:

Of all the characteristics of ordinary human nature envy is the most unfortunate; not only does the envious person wish to inflict misfortune and do so whenever he can with impunity, but he is also himself rendered unhappy by envy. Instead of deriving pleasure from what he has, he derives pain from what others have. If he can, he deprives others of their advantages, which to him is as desirable as it would be to secure the same advantages himself.

The ancient Stoics also had a thing or two to say about envy. Seneca wrote: “Envy of other people shows how they are unhappy. Their continual attention to others behavior shows how they are boring”. Epictetus had straightforward advice for how to avoid envy: “If the essence of good consists in things in our own control, there will be no room for envy or emulation. But, for your part, don't wish to be a general, or a senator, or a consul, but to be free; and the only way to this is a contempt of things not in our own control.”.

Schopenhauer thought that while everybody suffers occasionally from envy, schadenfreude – the pleasure one derives from another person's misfortune – is the ultimate culprit. He called it “the worst trait in human nature […] closely akin to cruelty” and said that “to feel envy is human; but to indulge in such malicious joy is fiendish and diabolical”.

Joseph Epstein, who has written an entire book on envy, cunningly noted that “of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all”. He continues in a more serious tone:

It is the one [sin] that people are least likely to want to own up to, for to do so is to admit that one is probably ungenerous, mean, small-hearted. It may also be the most endemic. Apart from Socrates, Jesus, Marcus Aurelius, Saint Francis, Mother Teresa, and only a few others, at one time or another, we have all felt flashes of envy, even if in varying intensities, from its minor pricks to its deep, soul-destroying, lacerating stabs.

While not always a deadly sin, it can certainly be that too, as in the Biblical story of Cain and Abel. The Book of Genesis doesn’t spell out a specific reason for the murder of Abel, but it’s obvious that the motives were envy and anger due to God rejecting Cain's offering, while accepting Abel's. Indeed, “hatred always accompanies envy”, as Schopenhauer remarked.

Envy is our darkest and most secret sin, something we rarely want to talk about or admit to. But as Epstein wrote, we all have felt it, and I presume that even the most disciplined Stoics will occasionally harbor feelings of this sort. It’s almost unavoidable, as if nature has programmed it into us. Perhaps there is an explanation to envy through the evolution of our species? Perhaps there’s some twisted connection between envy and the survival of the fittest?

In modern times we obviously don’t need envy to survive. On the contrary, envy is probably the one thing that is guaranteed to lead us to misery, both on a personal and national level. Countless are the conflicts and wars that have erupted as a result of envy.

Without a doubt it is wise to ignore and actively push away feelings of envy. That’s easier said than done, though. Fortunately, mindfulness seems to be able to provide some alleviation, at least in my own experience. As thoughts and feelings of envy arise, you just take a step back and observe them without any judgement – and then just let them go like leaves floating away on the river.