“You shall not covet [...] anything that belongs to your neighbor.”

Deuteronomy 5:21
(NIV)
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I was reading Robert Greene’s “The Daily Meditations” and he says, “Of all the human emotions, none is uglier or more elusive than envy.” This reminded me of the Old Testament’s Tenth Commandment, quoted above.

While the commandments earlier on the second tablet forbid us to injure our neighbor with actions and words, the final commandment cuts at the root of evil: our thoughts. Perhaps before the commandments were given on Mount Sanai, the ancient characters of the biblical stories felt there was no responsibility attached to the regulation of thought, so here the Divine Law asserts control over these feelings since they are at the source of actions.

This law declares that we are not merely slaves to our envious desires, but reminds us we have the power within ourselves to control (or at least influence) what goes on in our minds. Actions and words can be held accountable by others, but only we can keep in check what goes on in our hearts.

Greene describes how envy hurts because it’s an “admission to ourselves that we are inferior to another person in something that we value.” We tell ourselves it’s not envy, but rather unfairness in the distribution of goods, looks, qualities, money, or what have you. This feeling of unfairness results in anger, leading to hostility. Acting on hostility can bring harm to someone else. But gratifying ourselves at the cost of injuring our neighbors brings short-lived satisfaction, because something else to envy is always around the corner.

Get at the root and dig into why you feel envious in the first place. Often it’s from a trauma in the past that can be nurtured and healed to eradicate the feeling. “Destroy it before it destroys you,” says Greene. “Develop your sense of self-worth from internal standards and not incessant comparisons.”