Webster’s New Dictionary defines envy as “bitter or longing consideration of another’s better fortune or success or qualities.” The English Thesaurus defines it in its noun form as “jealousy,” “greed,” “desire,” “resentment,” “spite.” In its verb form, it is defined as to “be jealous of,” “to be envious of,” “to covet,” “to resent,” “begrudge,” “grudge.”
From the definitions above, there are two sides to envy. There is the angle of resentment or spite and there is the angle of an invidious desire also known as covetousness. The competitive spirit is borne out of envy. It arises from coveting what another has and practically having sleepless nights in an attempt to have the same or more, not because it is needful but just to prove to the one envied that he is not the only one who can achieve it.
In Proverbs 14:30, the Bible calls envy the rottenness of the bones. The bones constitute the framework for the skeletal structure of a person’s body. If they are rotten, the state of the entire structure is better imagined. Most manifestations of bitterness and spite of another person are directly related to envy. Therefore, an envious person is generally fidgety and unhappy in the presence of the object of his envy, for the simple reason that he is not happy with the fact that he is not in the enviable person’s position.
In a Nollywood movie titled, “I Want Your Wife,” the peace of an entire family was forever shattered because of one brother’s envy of his only sibling. The resentment was such that the younger brother went to the extent of doing everything possible to seduce and sleep with his elder brother’s wife. He succeeded but at the cost of his own life. Another Nollywood film, “Blood Sisters” tells the gory story of how the younger of two sisters resented her sister’s good fortune to the extent of poisoning her in order to marry her husband.
In the Bible, Cain killed his only brother, Abel, out of envy. What was Abel’s sin? God expressed His approval of Abel and disapproval of Cain for reasons He did not hide from Cain (Genesis 4). Instead of making amends, Cain simply eliminated the object of his envy – his own younger brother!
Remember Joseph and his brothers in the Bible? Joseph got into trouble with his brothers because their father did not hide his preference for him. To make matters worse, Joseph woke up one morning and announced to his brothers that he had a dream that seemed to indicate that he was going to be head over them! While they were still trying to grapple with the meaning of the first dream, he announced to them the very next day that he had another one! They conspired to kill him. Providence made them change their minds, but they still sold him into slavery.
Unfortunately, envy is a sentiment that does not respect age, race, status or stature. An employer can envy his employee whom he perceives has something, a virtue or a quality he (the employer) does not have. Think of David and King Saul, his employer. In the corporate environment, envy can provoke hostile buyouts or takeovers arising from rabid competitive jealousy, especially if the profile of the smaller company in the deal is on the rise.
Several years ago, when I was still in paid employment in Nigeria, I went to see one of my former bosses for a discussion relating to the progress of the organisation. As soon as I left his office, he called his secretary who he knew was my friend and told her to warn me seriously. My ‘crime’ was that girls liked me (I was neither married nor a Christian then) and my style of dressing was too sophisticated! His advice and message to me was that I should wait for my money to “arrive” before wearing the kind of clothes and shoes I wore! After all, even he who was paying my salary didn’t wear the things I wore! I later learnt that he had been making advances to a lady I once dated and he felt that I was the only obstacle in his way!
Envy is admiration turned upside down. The person who envies you admires something in you that he does not have and is probably not willing or able to pay the price to achieve or have. In such an event, the envious person unnecessarily begins to disparage and tries to belittle the envied. More importantly, he belittles the very achievement and the capacity of the achiever.
The envious gets angry at the success of the envied because he believes that he is more deserving of the success even when he is not willing to pay the price for it. Envious people pick quarrels with others for the pettiest reasons, usually with statements like,
Who do you think you are?
Why are you so full of yourself?
Are you the only one with a degree?
Or is it because they promoted you?
Is it because you ride x or y type of car, or because you live in so and so place that the rest of us will not rest?
Meanwhile, the object of their venom is standing right there wondering what on earth he did to deserve those venomous outbursts! In our younger years, a friend of mine was out on a date with his girlfriend in a restaurant. A highly successful professional, this young man became a multimillionaire before he was 30 years old. Seated at another table across them were four ladies who obviously were on a girls’ hangout date. As the evening progressed, the ladies were engaged in a conversation and my friend’s name popped up. Oblivious of the fact that the object of their conversation was seated right across them (since it was evident that none of them actually knew him), one of them began to regale her friends with the story of a relationship she had with the guy and the various places they went to together before she discovered that he was just a serial heartbreaker who was so full of himself because he was rich. According to her, she walked out on him one day in order to teach him a lesson that she was not one of those ladies that could be rubbished.
“Who does he think he is?”
“How did he even make the money at such a young age?” (my friend was in his early 30s then).
“Does he have to be so proud?”
“Is he the first young man to make money?”
“Some people just don’t know how to manage success” etc., were the comments that were flying across their table. My friend sat there with his date as they both patiently listened to the conversation. After a while, he got up and went towards the restroom. He deliberately stopped by the ladies’ table to say “Hi” so that they could all see him. None of them knew who he was! You should have seen the shock on their faces and the shame on the face of the one who started the conversation when he introduced himself as the subject of their entire conversation in the preceding 20 minutes… To be continued.
Remember, the sky is not your limit, God is!
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