Envy...Some ways to Cure it! Envy refers to the desire that a person feels for the destruction or removal of a blessing that another person has – a destruction which the bearer of this feeling would himself carry out if he had the power to. This is quite different to wanting such blessings for oneself while not wishing for them to be removed from others, for that is, indeed, a positive and commendable desire. Envy is an evil disease of the heart and the cancer of the soul. If unchecked it leads to animosity, bad behaviour, thinking evil of others, backbiting, tale-bearing and dishonesty. It is considered to be among the most dangerous and destructive of internal diseases and is the most destructive to a persons religion and worldly life. Abu Huraryah (ra) narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, When one of you sees someone who has been blessed more than him in money or appearance, then let him look at someone lesser than him, whom he has been preferred over. (Bukhari) What is Envy? Envy is a puzzling and complex emotion. In Christianity, it is known as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. In Islam, there is hasad (destructive jealousy) where the envier wishes evil for others and to be happy when misfortune befalls them. Ghibtah, however, is envy that is free from malice, meaning the envier neither wants the loss of the blessing nor hating for it to remain with the person, but desiring the same for oneself without the removal of the blessing from others. Envy is not a respected emotion in religion, philosophy, or psychology, yet many of us are suffering from it more and more in a world that forces us to compare ourselves to others. On Social Media Networks we are forced to look into the lives of others and wonder if our life compares as well. In magazines and talk shows, we are forced to look into the lives of celebrities, which leaves us wondering about our own lives. Are we thin enough, pretty enough, successful enough, etc? Even if we try and protect our home environment from being invaded by such images, we are bombarded with them each time we go to the grocery store and see magazine covers promoting the lifestyles of the rich and famous; drive through the town or freeways and see billboards with images promoting plastic surgery; or listen to the radio and hear advertisements for various products that will make us prettier, richer and thinner. Young children as a result are starting to worry about their weight and appearance at ages as young as 4-5 years old. This is worrisome to say the least. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. How Envy Can Destroy Our Lives Envy is a propensity to view the well-being of others with distress, even though it does not detract from ones own. [It is] a reluctance to see our own well being overshadowed by anothers because the standard we use to see how well off we are is not the intrinsic worth of our own well being but how it compares with that of others. [Envy] aims, at least in terms of ones wishes, at destroying others good fortune. Envy and jealousy are often used interchangeably but they are separate and distinct emotions. Envy is centrally focused on the competition with another. You can channel the desire for competition into something more productive rather than destructive. To be continued..
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 11:12:03 +0000
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