The envy test

A few weeks ago, I was introduced to the concept of the envy test. The term came up in a discussion related to seeking purpose and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since. Over the last two weeks, I’ve been making a note of everything that strikes a chord of envy and trying to figure out what it’s telling me; but first, let’s take a look at what the envy test is.

When looking for your purpose, pay close attention to the things you get jealous of. For ages, jealousy has gotten and continues to get a bad rap. Yet, the emotion exists. Instead of being suppressed or ignored, when paid attention to, it can tell us a lot about what we value in life.

Take for example, a fancy car. No matter how cool the car, that singular vehicle has never struck a chord of jealousy in me. On the other hand, when I hear of someone who’s written a book, it immediately sends my head into a spin. It is part admiration and part motivation, but it’s hard to walk away from the news without a tinge of envy. Similarly, when I asked my peer who came up with the test on what made her jealous, she talked about her peers being promoted at work. She felt absolutely no envy when her peers got promoted and on reflection; she realized that she wasn’t really enjoying her job and, according to her, getting promoted would mean more responsibilities and more time spent on work, which she could not see herself doing. This observation led her to switching jobs and finding one where she would be jealous of colleagues being promoted.

However, this observation takes practice. Envy is an indicator of many things – it tells you how you define your rich life, what has been missing in your life that you consider valuable, a little about purpose or sometimes, nothing at all. Being jealous of someone playing in the snow leads to the observation that I may want to make up for the absence of snow in my younger years. However, it tells me little about my purpose. Hence, my list making. I am yet to discover what my purpose is, but I am definitely beginning to learn a little more about what I value in life.

So, tell me – who have you been envious of lately and why?