Enviers don’t usually envy those who are far removed from their lives and lifestyles, or who are vastly more talented or successful than they are. They tend to envy people to whom they might actually be compared unfavorably, that is, those who are just like them—only better.
–Rebecca DeYoung
(Jean Louis Théodore Géricault, 1822)
The 1984 movie Amadeus, which depicts the rivalry between Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, is often cited as a classic example of envy. Here’s an article that, while not written from a posture of Christian faith, offers keen insight into how envy works.
Quoting the work of philosopher, Alain de Botton, the article tries to redeem envy from its reputation as a deadly sin and offers a positive role for it in our lives:
The real problem with envy is not feeling it, but what you do with it. Envy is a highly beneficial emotion in so far as it goads us towards things we are capable of getting.
Is envy a deadly sin, as the Bible suggests? Or is it, as de Botton claims, ‘a goad to greatness’?
7 Deadly Sins 