Lessons in Stoicism: Envy

Date: 30 April 2018. By: Evening Goodfellow

When you get envious of someone, do the following:

Remove him from his fortune. Remove him from his looks. Remove him from his Dad's money. Remove him from his own money. Remove him from his clothes. Remove him from his loved ones. Remove him from his friends. Remove him from anything that shelters him. Remove him from anything that nurtures him. Remove him from anything he holds dear.

With him against a bright background, look into his soul - lay it bare open before your eyes. Stop when you can't go any deeper. If you still find something in him that you envy, congratulations.

Congratulations for you have found somone to learn from, someone to respect, someone to love. Someone to aspire to be.

And If you find nothing worth envying, realise how baseless it is envy someone. Realise that a person is the product of not only his actions, but also his circumstances. Realise that, more often than not, we cannot see the full picture. We end up envying people, without even realising that a vast majority of their life, their achievements, even their faults are beyond their control. They are for the most part, predetermined.

It is best not to make judgements, and carry on indifferently in life and root out Envy.