Antidote to Envy

“Everybody is unique.  Compare not yourself with anybody else lest you spoil God’s curriculum.”

-- Baal Shem Tov, Jewish sage

Envy.  We have all felt it from time to time, and it is a terrible feeling.  It consumes your thoughts, eats you up inside, makes you unappreciative of what you have, and robs you of happiness.  We all know what envy is; we all hate the feeling.  But what can we do about it?

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Professor Lawrence Cunningham from the University of Notre Dame says that while there is no sure cure for envy, if you could concoct a spiritual medicine for it, it would include these ingredients: an appreciation of your limits and capabilities, a more generous attitude toward others, a discipline of showing gratitude, and a greater sense of what ultimately matters in life. 

You can’t run down to your local drugstore and buy this medicine, but you can keep all the ingredients in stock – not in your medicine cabinet, but in your heart.  And then when those feelings of resentment, bitterness and discontent start to surface, you will have exactly what you need to cure them.