How adept are you at ignoring your inner voice? Especially when it’s clamoring for something that is a long shot, unpopular, or inconvenient. ‘Envy,’ one layer deeper in consciousness, is urgent, demanding, and unapologetic; it doesn’t care about odds, what is trendy, or convenient. It wants what it wants — no, needs. Like a child at the checkout counter candy section, envy doesn't see a difference between ‘want’ and ‘need.’

The knee-jerk reaction to experiencing envy is shame and embarrassment. Envious people are the ‘have-nots,’ and it’s unacceptable to be publicly disgruntled about one’s own ‘have-not’ situation.

Envy is seen as petty, but also dangerous; envious people sabotage others. Envy is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, thus punishable in the afterlife. By the way, the punishment for envy is an eternity in a freezing lake. I guess envy is a hot emotion, and the envious need to chill out. But even before Christianity cemented its status in 590 AD, it was also present in Classic Greek and Roman philosophies on virtues and vices.

You Felt a Feeling? SUPPRESS! SUPPRESS!

Perhaps because of these associations, we’ve been trained to stuff envy back down while expressing polite (and feigned) enthusiasm. The prescribed self-help antidotes for envy?

• Refocusing on things you are grateful for

• Reasoning that there are plenty of opportunities

• Reminding yourself that one person's success doesn't diminish your own

• Reminding yourself that you're enough

• Reminding yourself that life isn't a competition

All of these are sensible. But are they the best course of action?

I propose a case for the French 'envie.' Instead of talking yourself out of envy, acknowledge it as 'envie'. It is your inner-child voice screaming, “I WANT IT! I NEED IT!” Recognize it for what it is: a wayfinding sign for your life. Follow your envy when you notice it cropping up.

Simple to say. Difficult to do.

You'll have to peel back some layers. Envy can be triggered by superficial things, like the luxuriousness of someone's hair or the size of their home. Keep peeling back layers until you leave the realm of things for the realm of feelings. Don’t stop at ‘money’ if you already have your basic needs taken care of. Keep going. Money was invented to facilitate bartering — it's a conduit. It’s used to acquire. What are you trying to acquire? A more useful question: How do you want to feel?

For example, if you notice yourself feeling envious while looking at someone’s vacation photos, you could interpret it as “I need a vacation” (fellow Americans, you likely do need a vacation). But if you examine it more closely, it could be that you need more independence in your work, less oversight, to feel unencumbered. Alternatively, you could be looking to feel less examined or judged. You could be looking to feel a connection to something larger than yourself. It’s equally possible what appeals to you is reigniting your curiosity and sense of adventure. So yes, take the vacation, but also figure out what’s underpinning your envy so you can set goals. From there, it’s easier to save intentionally, ignore impulse purchases, and bring yourself closer to a fulfilling life.

Finding Your Values

If you peel back enough layers, it’s likely you'll find something that aligns with your core values. Don't know yours? Figure them out. (If you want to try now, here is a resource I like.) Every decision gets easier once you know what you care deeply about. Once you know what triggered envy, you have a better idea about how to insert more of that thing into your life.

Real Life Example

To help you understand what ‘peeling back layers’ looks like, I’ll share a story about my own envy:

I made a new friend. She was an interesting, intelligent person with a lot of warmth. I liked her immediately. When I connected with her on social, I noticed a lot of the comments on her posts were in another language. She often responded, and not in English. Who were these people? Family from the old country? It didn’t seem likely. None of them shared last names or even lived in the same place. They weren’t even all speaking the same language. The next time I saw her, I asked her about it. She explained that she had lived for several years abroad. After college, she had worked as a journalist in Italy and then in Greece. She stayed in touch with a handful of friends. My face melted. Stunningly, she hadn’t thought to lead with that as part of her backstory, which made me wonder how much more fabulous she was. Who was this person? And she was 2 years younger. She accomplished more of my goals and in a shorter time. What had I been doing?! Clearly, wasting my time: going to university twice for a secondary (and useless) degree, drinking, dancing, sleeping?

I felt envy and then shame. And then what was starting to become a shame spiral was interrupted by a new thought: “I’m so lucky to have made such an interesting friend.” I’m not always that thoughtful and gracious. Sometimes I’m petty. It was almost as if the thought was inserted into my head by someone else. I marveled at it.

“How fantastic is it to have peers that remind you of who you’ve always wanted to be? Peers, because they’re on equal footing, remind you that your goals are attainable. They remind you to keep striving when you’ve gotten distracted, off track, or encountered hiccups along the way. It's good to be reminded.”

When I took a moment to examine what was envie-worthy, I found things like "fluency in another language" and "living like a local." I thought about my core values: curiosity, growth, and open-mindedness. This 'expression of want' was not about La Dolce Vita or being a journalist. It was about living abroad and absorbing other cultures. I wanted to become a more global citizen and broaden my perspective. I wanted to be both aware of the world, and participate in it. To live in a progressive city. To stop assuming that my experience was the default simply because I had never known anything else.

So I set a goal for myself, which ended up taking seven years. In 2018, I lived in France for three months, embedded in a neighborhood, learning about French language and culture. Seven years is a long time, and it was not easy to pull off a life upheaval. I would not consider myself a disciplined person, but every second I felt myself getting lazy, saying yes to the wrong things or getting distracted, I thought about my friend, and the prickle of envie kicked up again.

Envy's status as a Deadly Sin means that people have been struggling with it for a long time. It's integral to human nature and everyone feels it. It's fruitless to try to stop the feeling. Instead of denying it or feeling ashamed, follow your envy. Acknowledge and welcome it as envie. Thank it for the wayfinding sign. Examine it and figure out what's causing it. Set some goals and get to work.

Research suggests that our native languages unconsciously shape our perspectives. It’s possible to reveal the oversights and attitudes baked into one’s native tongue by learning another language and comparing.