Envy

I sit in darkness
Eyes held glaring
Always thirsty
Yet always unmoving

I sit and wait
Forever patient
For your demise
In my frustration

And on the day
That you should fall
Above I’ll smile
As you crawl

My single success
It was the only way how
Why should I raise to your level?
When you’re in my trenches now
　
Definition-
1.
a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, etc.
2.
an object of
3.
Obsolete . ill will.
(dictionary.com)

Punishment in Dante’s Purgatory- to have their eyes sewn shut with wire because they have gained sinful pleasure from seeing others brought low


envious feeling:

GREEN with ENVY.

Ever heard that before? Personally, I find this statement incredibly ironic. Though I’m sure most are describing the green sickening feeling you get when viewing something you can never have, I think pairing a sin like Envy up with a color like green is contradictory. If you speak from a symbolic reference, which we love to do here on this blog, Green is acknowledged in color theory as a color of nature, harmony, and fertility.

Color theory 

Nature gives birth to abundance.
Harmony equals peace and tranquility with ones surroundings and circumstances.
Fertility recycles the flow of life and abundance.

That doesn’t sound synonymous with the definition of "discontent or covetous with regard to another’s advantages…"

Also, another confusion with envy may be with its place next to jealousy. People usually assume that they mean the same thing, but there is actually a distinct difference. Envy strictly deals with the unhappiness and in some one else’s success. Suzy got good grades, a new puppy, and was born a blonde bombshell. You don’t want Suzy to be happy, and you begrudgingly wish you could possess everything she is.
Jealousy on the other hand deals with a sense of resentment and self-entitlement. Not only do you wish you had Suzy’s good fortune, but you hate her for it and believe that puppy should have been yours in the first place. This works with relationships as well. Suzy steals your soul mate, and the (ironically) green eyed monster starts to rear their head because you truly believe you can be and are a better match for that person, so how dare she take who should be yours.

Jealousy will always involve some kind of sense of loss. (In relationships, jealousy could cause the failure when the loss is caused by the pre-anticipated sense of this loss) In true envy, there was no possession to begin with.
I could see envy being the complete polar opposite of the sin gluttony. If Gluttony is a state of constant consumption for self-satisfaction, Envy would be a state of constant misery from continued self-deprivation. The potential may lie before the envious, but they are so consumed with the loathing of the successful, they do not try to succeed themselves.
An example of envy in the real world could be the growing rate of mediocrity that is cried by those who wish for equality. It’s hard to deal with successful people, but if they can be knocked down to your level, you won’t have to raise to theirs. It’s like a warped case of sloth peppered with the dormant motivation for greed, but the greed is never fulfilled because the self destruction and self deprivation takes too much time.
Need an easier example?

Exhibit A-Taking dodge ball of schools

The slow kid with glasses can’t get out of the way of the ball fast enough, so instead trying to improve his own coordination, he whines to his mother who takes the PTA and the school board on a joyride of self indulgent solutions.

Exhibit B- A thriving sub-culture of online haters who jump and attack at the first hint of superiority

Do you honestly think there could exist one single youtube video that doesn’t include somewhere in the comments: "this BLOwZ!!!!" or "my dog could do better !!!" and of course, "this sucks harder than Justin beiber…"
…Everything always leads back to Justin Bieber…


In conclusion, the presence in Envy of a sin is confusing. It doesn’t quite hold the resentment of jealousy, but at the same time can hold a darker meaning than just thinking "I could do sooo much better than them!" Its true sin comes from the joy in witnessing the fallen. The delights in failure as you dwell in stationary disgust.
It’s the manifestation of the old saying,


"If I can’t have it, nobody can…"