The Age of Envy: How to Be Happy When Everyone Else’s Life Looks Perfect

By Moya Sarner

One night about five years ago, just before bed, I saw a tweet from a friend announcing how delighted he was to have been shortlisted1. shortlist： 把……列入最后候选人名单。for a journalism award. I felt my stomach lurch and my head spin, my teeth clench and my chest tighten.2. 我感觉胃里翻江倒海，头晕目眩，牙齿紧咬，胸部发闷。lurch： 突然倾斜，摇摇晃晃；spin： 旋转，晕眩；clench： 咬紧，闭紧。I did not sleep until the morning.

Another five years or so before that, when I was at university,I was scrolling3. scroll：（在屏幕上）上下滚动（信息）。through the Facebook photos of someone on my course whom I vaguely knew. As I clicked on the pictures of her out clubbing with friends, drunkenly laughing, I felt my mood sink so fast that I had to sit back in my chair.4. 当我点击她的照片，看到她和朋友们一起泡夜店，醉醺醺地开怀大笑时，我感觉自己的心情急转直下，不得不坐回到椅子上去。I seemed to stop breathing.

I have thought about why these memories still haunt me from time to time—why they have not been forgotten along with most other day-to-day interactions I have had on social media—and I think it is because, in my 32 years, those are the most powerful and painful moments of envy I have experienced. I had not even entered that journalism competition, and I have never once been clubbing and enjoyed it, but as I read that tweet and as I scrolled through those photographs, I so desperately wanted what those people had that it left me as winded as if I had been punched in the stomach.5. 我甚至没有参加过那个新闻比赛，也从未享受过泡夜店，然而，当我读到那篇推文和翻看那些照片时，我是如此急切地想要那些人拥有的东西，这让我喘不过气来，就像在肚子上挨了一拳似的。winded： 喘不过气的。

我们生活在一个嫉妒的时代：嫉妒别人的职业、房子、孩子、食物、身材、假期……看到别人的好运顺境，看到别人拥有了本该属于我们的东西，我们往往会嫉妒和痛苦。随着社交媒体的发展和普及，嫉妒的情绪更是被无限放大。而且很多时候，我们不仅嫉妒别人，还会嫉妒滤镜里那个美化过的、虚假的自己。嫉妒让我们心理不平衡、不快乐，也让我们难以悦纳自己，学习他人。所以啊，我们要学会经常问问自己：到底什么样的生活，才是我们真正想要的呢？

We live in the age of envy. Career envy, kitchen envy,children envy, food envy, upper arm envy, holiday envy. You name it, there’s an envy for it. Human beings have always felt what Aristotle defined in the fourth century BC as pain at the sight of another’s good fortune, stirred by “those who have what we ought to have”—though it would be another thousand years before it would make it on to Pope Gregory’s list of the seven deadly sins.6. 看到别人的好运顺境，看到“别人拥有了本该是我们的东西”，人们心中总会感到痛苦。这种痛苦，亚里士多德早在公元前四世纪就已经作了定义，而千年以后，这也成了教皇格列高利一世所说的七大罪之一。Aristotle：亚里士多德（公元前384—前322），希腊哲学家、逻辑学家和科学家；Pope Gregory： 教皇格列高利一世（约540—604），于590—604年任教皇；seven deadly sins： 七大罪，基督教教义中对人类恶行的分类，这些恶行能够导致其他不道德的行为或习惯，一般指傲慢、贪婪、淫邪、嫉妒、贪食、愤怒及怠惰。

But with the advent7. advent： 出现。of social media, says Ethan Kross,professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who studies the impact of Facebook on our well-being, “envy is being taken to an extreme.” We are constantly bombarded by“Photoshopped lives,” he says, “and that exerts a toll on us the likes of which we have never experienced in the history of our species.8. 他说：“我们的生活中充斥着美化过的照片，这对我们造成了人类历史上从未经历过的伤害。”exert： 施加；toll：损害，破坏。And it is not particularly pleasant.”Clinical psychologist Rachel Andrew says she is seeing more and more envy in her consulting room, from people who “can’t achieve the lifestyle they want but which they see others have.” Our use of platforms including Facebook,Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat, she says, amplifies this deeply disturbing psychological discord.9. amplify： 放大，增强；disturbing： 令人烦恼的，令人不安的；discord： 不协调，不一致。“I think what social media has done is make everyone accessible for comparison,”she explains. “In the past, people might have just envied their neighbours, but now we can compare ourselves with everyone across the world.” Windy Dryden, one of the UK’s leading practitioners of cognitive behavioural therapy, calls this“comparisonitis.”10. practitioner： 开业者（尤指医生、律师等）；cognitive behavioural therapy：认知行为疗法，主要针对抑郁症、焦虑症等心理疾病和不合理认知导致的心理问题；comparisonitis：意为“比较癖”，后缀-itis表示“……迷（癖）”。

And those comparisons are now much less realistic, Andrew continues: “We all know that images can be filtered11. filter： 加滤镜。, that people are presenting the very best take on their lives.” We carry our envy amplification device around in our pockets, we sleep with it next to our pillows, and it tempts us 24 hours a day, the moment we wake up, even if it is the middle of the night. Andrew has observed among her patients that knowing they are looking at an edited version of reality, the awareness that #nofilter is a deceitful hashtag, is no defence against the emotional force of envy.12. 安德鲁在她的病人中观察到，即便他们知道看到的是加工润色后的现实，意识到#无滤镜是一个骗人的话题标签，也不能抵御嫉妒的情感力量。deceitful： 不实的，骗人的；hashtag： 话题标签。“What I notice is that most of us can intellectualise13. intellectualise： 对……作理性的探讨（或阐述）。what we see on social media platforms—we know that these images and narratives that are presented aren’t real, we can talk about it and rationalise it—but on an emotional level, it’s still pushing buttons.If those images or narratives tap into what we aspire14. aspire： 渴望，追求。to, but what we don’t have, then it becomes very powerful.”

To explore the role that envy plays in our use of social media, Kross and his team designed a study to consider the relationship between passive Facebook use—“just voyeuristically scrolling,” as he puts it—and envy and mood from moment to moment.15. 为了探究嫉妒在我们使用社交媒体时所扮演的角色，克罗斯和他的团队设计了一项研究，来探讨他所说的被动使用脸书——也就是纯粹窥探性地浏览——与嫉妒和情绪之间的即时关系。voyeuristically： 窥探性地。Participants received texts five times a day for two weeks, asking about their passive Facebook use since the previous message, and how they were feeling in that moment. The results were striking, he says:“The more you’re on there scrolling away, the more that elicits16. elicit： 引出，引起。feelings of envy, which in turn predicts drops in how good you feel.”

No age group or social class is immune from envy, according to Andrew. In her consulting room she sees young women, selfconscious about how they look, who begin to follow certain accounts on Instagram to find hair inspiration or makeup techniques, and end up envying the women they follow and feeling even worse about themselves. But she also sees the same pattern among older businessmen and women who start out looking for strategies and tips on Twitter, and then struggle to accept what they find, which is that some people seem to be more successful than they are. “Equally, it can be friends and family who bring out those feelings of envy, around looks, lifestyle, careers and parenting—because somebody is always doing it better on social media,” she says.

While envying other people is damaging enough, “We have something even more pernicious, I think,” the renowned social psychologist Sherry Turkle tells me.17. pernicious： 有害的，恶性的；renowned：知名的，有声望的。“We look at the lives we have constructed online in which we only show the best of ourselves, and we feel a fear of missing out in relation to our own lives. We don’t measure up to the lives we tell others we are living, and we look at the self as though it were an other, and feel envious of it.”18. 我们其实并没有达到告诉别人的那种生活状态，我们看着自己，就好像那是另外一个人，并对其感到嫉妒。measure up to： 达到。This creates an alienating19. alienating： 疏远的，异化的。sense of “self-envy” inside us, she says. “We feel inauthentic, curiously envious of our own avatars.”20. inauthentic： 假的，不真实的；avatar：化身。

We gaze at our slimming, filtered #OutfitOfTheDay, and we want that body—not the one that feels tired and achy on the morning commute.21. achy： 疼痛的；commute： 上下班路程。We spit out the flavourless “edible” flowers that adorn our muesli.22. adorn： 装饰，修饰；muesli： 穆兹利（一种由谷物、干果、坚果和牛奶制成的早餐食品）。We don’t know what to do with the useless inflatable unicorn when the Instagram Story has come to an end.23. inflatable： 可充气的，可膨胀的；unicorn： 独角兽。While we are busy finding the perfect camera angle, our lives become a dazzling,flawless carapace, empty inside but for the envy of others and ourselves.”24. 我们忙于寻找完美的拍摄角度，我们的生活也变成了一个光彩照人、完美无瑕的甲壳，内里空空如也，只为了让别人和我们自己嫉妒而存在。carapace： 壳，甲壳。

There is a different, even darker definition of the concept of envy.For Patricia Polledri, psychoanalytic psychotherapist and author of Envy in Everyday Life, the word refers to something quite dangerous,which can take the form of emotional abuse and violent acts of criminality.25. psychoanalytic： 精神分析的，心理分析的；psychotherapist： 心理治疗师；criminality： 犯罪。“Envy is wanting to destroy what someone else has. Not just wanting it for yourself, but wanting other people not to have it. It’s a deep-rooted issue, where you are very, very resentful26. resentful： 憎恨的，怨恨的。of another person’s well-being—whether that be their looks, their position or the car they have. It is silent, destructive, underhand—it is pure malice,27. underhand： 秘密的，偷偷摸摸的；malice： 恶意，怨恨。pure hatred,” she says.

This can make it very difficult for envious people to seek and receive help, because it can feel impossible for them to take in something valuable from someone else, so strong is the urge to annihilate28. annihilate： 消灭，毁灭。anything good in others and in themselves. She believes envy is not innate; that it starts with an experience of early deprivation, when a mother cannot bond with her baby, and that child’s self-esteem is not nourished through his or her life.29. 她认为嫉妒不是天生的；它始于早年的缺失经历，如果母亲没有与孩子建立良好的情感联系，孩子在生活中的自尊心就得不到滋养。innate： 先天的，与生俱来的；deprivation： 剥夺，缺失。

As a cognitive behavioural therapist, Dryden is less interested in the root causes of envy, focusing instead on what can be done about it. When it comes to the kind of envy inspired by social media, he says, there are two factors that make a person more vulnerable: low self-esteem and deprivation intolerance, which describes the experience of being unable to bear not getting what you want. To overcome this, he says, think about what you would teach a child. The aim is to develop a philosophy, a way of being in the world, that allows you to recognise when someone else has something that you want but don’t have, and also to recognise that you can survive without it, and that not having it does not make you less worthy or less of a person.

We could also try to change the way we habitually use social media. Kross explains that most of the time, people use Facebook passively and not actively, idly and lazily reading instead of posting, messaging or commenting. “That is interesting when you realise it is the passive usage that is presumed to be more harmful than the active. The links between passive usage and feeling worse are very robust30. robust： 稳固的，坚固的。—we have huge data sets involving tens of thousands of people,” he says. While it is less clear how active usage affects well-being, there does seem to be a small positive link, he explains, between using Facebook to connect with others and feeling better.

Perhaps, though, each of us also needs to think more carefully when we do use social media actively, about what we are trying to say and why—and how the curation of our online personas can contribute to this age of envy in which we live.31. curation： 策展，这里指综合管理；persona： 人物角色。When I was about to post on Facebook about some good career-related news recently, my husband asked me why I wanted to do that. I did not feel comfortable answering him,because the truth is it was out of vanity. Because I wanted the likes, the messages of congratulations, and perhaps, if I am brutally honest, I wanted others to know that I was doing well. I felt ashamed. There is nothing like an overly perceptive spouse to prick one’s ego.32. 没有什么比一个过于敏锐的配偶更能刺痛一个人的自尊心了。perceptive： 感觉敏锐的，有洞察力的；prick： 刺痛。

It is easy to justify publicising33. publicise： 宣传，宣扬。a promotion on Twitter as necessary for work, as a quick way of spreading the news to colleagues and peers. But as we type the words “Some personal news,” we could pause to ask ourselves, why are we doing this, really? Friends, family, colleagues—anyone who needs to know will find out soon enough; with news that is quite personal, do we need to make it so public? Honing34. hone： 磨砺，磨炼，这里指打造。your personal brand on social media may seem good for business,but it does have a price. It all creates an atmosphere where showing off—whether unapologetically or deceptively—is not just normalised but expected, and that is a space where envy can flourish.35. unapologetically： 不愧悔地，无歉意地；deceptively： 欺骗性地；normalise： 使正常化；flourish： 繁荣，兴旺。

I do not think the answer necessarily always lies in being more honest about our lives—it might sometimes lie in simply shutting up. Of course, raising awareness about previously hushed-up, devastating experiences of miscarriage or abuse or harassment can have the power to challenge stigma and change society.36. 当然，提高人们对先前被隐瞒的、带给人沉重打击的流产、虐待和骚扰这些经历的意识，能够使人们获得挑战耻辱、改变社会的力量。devastating： 破坏性的，毁灭性的；miscarriage： 流产；stigma： 耻辱，污名。But ostensibly37. ostensibly： 表面上，假装地。authentic posts about mindfulness, or sadness, or no makeup selfies are always designed to portray their poster in the best light.

For Polledri’s concept of envy at its most noxious, there can be no upside.38. noxious： 有害的，有毒的；upside： 好的方面，积极的一面。But as a less extreme emotional experience, it can serve a function in our lives. Dryden differentiates between unhealthy envy and its healthy form, which, he says, “can be creative.” Just as hunger tells us we need to eat, the feeling of envy, if we can listen to it in the right way, could show us what is missing from our lives that really matters to us, Kross explains. Andrew says: “It is about naming it as an emotion,knowing how it feels, and then not interpreting it as a positive or a negative, but trying to understand what it is telling you that you want. If that is achievable, you could take proper steps towards achieving it. But at the same time, ask yourself, what would be good enough?”

When I reflect on those two moments of piercing envy that I cannot forget, I can see—once I have waded through the shame and embarrassment—that they coincided with acute periods of unhappiness and insecurity.39. piercing：（感情）强烈的；wade：跋涉；acute： 短时间的。I was struggling to establish myself as a freelance writer and, before that, struggling to establish a social life after leaving home for university in a new city. Both of these things have improved as time has passed, but I do still feel unpleasant pangs40. pang： 一阵（剧痛、伤心等）。of envy every now and then,whether I’m on social media or off it, and I see it among my friends and family. Perhaps in part it is because we do not know how to answer the question: “What would be good enough?” That is something I am still working on.