A promotion? A new car? Recently engaged? Cute baby photos everywhere?
Envy keeps tabs on people’s lives and our happiness invariably fluctuates depending on what’s happening to them. As I write this, I see the irony in envy: our happiness depends on people’s (un)happiness.
Envy comes in two stages. The first stage is when you want what other people have. It tugs at your heart to put yourself in their shoes. To imagine what it’d be like to have what they have, to live the life that they live, to post pictures of what they post on social media.