The Antidote to Envy 消除嫉妒的良方
I recently came across a passage from Krishamurti’s Think On These Things that gave me pause. I rarely highlight entire paragraphs when I read, but this one was so poignant that I had to elevate it from the page and into my memory.
我最近读到克里希那穆提的《思考这些事情》中的一段文字，让我深思。我很少在阅读时标记整段文字，但这一段如此感人，以至于我不得不将它从书页中提取出来，铭记于心。
Here it is: 在这里
I am envious because I want to be as beautiful as you are; I want to have the fine clothes, the elegant house, the high position that you have. Being dissatisfied with what I am, I want to be like you; but, if I understood my dissatisfaction and its cause, then I would not want to be like you or long for the things that you have.
我感到嫉妒，因为我想和你一样美丽；我想拥有你所拥有的华丽衣服、优雅的房子和高位。由于对自己不满意，我想变得像你；但如果我能理解自己的不满及其原因，我就不会想要像你一样，也不会渴望你所拥有的东西。In other words, if once I begin to understand what I am, then I shall never compare myself with another or be envious of anyone. Envy arises because I want to change myself and become like somebody else. But if I say, “Whatever I am, that I want to understand,” then envy is gone; then there is no need of discipline, and out of the understanding of what I am comes integration.
换句话说，如果我开始理解自己是什么，那么我就不会再与他人比较或嫉妒。嫉妒源于我想改变自己，变得像别人一样。但如果我说：“无论我是什么，我都想去理解”，那么嫉妒就会消失；那时不再需要约束，而对自我的理解将带来内心的统一。
I’ve since re-read this paragraph many times, and there’s one sentence that continues to capture my attention:
我已经重读了这一段很多次，有一句话始终让我特别关注：
Whatever I am, that I want to understand.
我想理解我自己。
Today, I want to talk about what it means to know yourself, and how this results in the elimination of envy.
今天，我想讨论了解自己意味着什么，以及这如何帮助消除嫉妒。
I’d like to start with an observation: Some people are open about their struggles with envy, while the majority hide it. I’m calling it an observation because I can’t point to a research paper that clearly shows this asymmetry, yet my personal exploration of human nature indicates that this is likely true.
我想先分享一个观察：有些人坦诚面对自己的嫉妒，而大多数人则选择隐瞒。我之所以称之为观察，是因为我无法引用一篇明确证明这种不对称的研究论文，但我对人性的个人探索让我相信这很可能是事实。
Simply put, envy is one of those complicated emotions that hasn’t had its time in the spotlight yet. Vulnerability came on center stage when Brene Brown gave a popular TED Talk on it, while depression has emerged as something that’s okay to discuss in recent years. Envy, however, hasn’t quite found that comfort zone. Revealing that you’re an envious person won’t yield much sympathy, and is often accompanied by a sense of shame that you feel this way.
简而言之，嫉妒是一种复杂的情感，尚未受到足够的关注。近年来，脆弱性因布 rene・布朗的 TED 演讲而成为焦点，而抑郁症也逐渐被接受为可以讨论的话题。然而，嫉妒似乎还没有找到这样的舒适区。承认自己是一个嫉妒的人往往不会得到太多同情，反而常常伴随着一种羞愧感，让人对自己的情绪感到不安。
But envy is one of the most pervasive problems in today’s world, especially as social media normalizes the successes of others, making you feel like you’re “underperforming” the average when in reality you’re being shown a highlight reel of outliers. You’re always comparing yourself to someone ahead of you, and the goalpost will keep moving because the algorithm ensures that it moves on your behalf. And whenever a hierarchy like this exists, the fingers of envy creep within.
但嫉妒是当今世界上最普遍的问题之一，尤其是社交媒体让他人的成功看起来很正常，这让你觉得自己 “表现不佳”，而实际上你看到的只是一些例外的精彩瞬间。你总是在和比你更优秀的人比较，而目标会不断变化，因为算法会自动为你调整。每当这种等级制度存在时，嫉妒的情绪就会悄然滋生。
All this results in a conundrum. Envy is running through everyone’s veins, yet no one feels like they could talk about it. No one wants to admit that the success of others makes them feel inadequate, and that this inadequacy dampens their sense of self-worth. Not only is it difficult to admit this to others, but it’s just as hard to admit it to oneself.
这一切导致了一个困境。嫉妒在每个人的心中蔓延，但没有人愿意谈论这个。没有人想承认他人的成功让自己感到自卑，而这种自卑又削弱了他们的自我价值感。承认这一点不仅对他人来说很难，对自己来说同样不易。
But that last word – oneself – is where the solution to this resides.
但最后这个词 —— 自己 —— 正是解决方案的所在。
Ultimately, envy is the result of not knowing who you are. It arises when you outsource your definitions of success to whatever norms you’ve adopted – whether consciously or not. In one person’s case, it might be wealth. In another, it may be social media followers. In another, it could be the size of a home. Regardless of what the barometer is, the fact that you desire it means that you’re looking beyond the contents of your mind and into the collective pool of society. You’re ceasing to look into what makes you uniquely you, and are gazing into the chaos of chasing that which you don’t understand.
最终，嫉妒源于对自我认知的缺失。当你将成功的定义交给你所接受的社会规范时 —— 无论是有意识还是无意识 —— 嫉妒便会产生。对某些人来说，这可能是财富；对另一些人来说，可能是社交媒体的粉丝数量；还有人可能会关注房子的大小。无论标准是什么，渴望它的事实表明你正在超越自己的内心，投向社会的集体意识。你开始忽视使你独特的特质，而沉迷于追逐那些你无法理解的混乱之中。
One of my favorite Joker lines from The Dark Knight is when he says that people are like dogs chasing cars; they won’t know what to do if they actually catch them. I find that the same thing applies to the chase of success or anything that might make you feel envious. If you got the thing that was the subject of your envy, then what? Is that it? Are you satisfied?
我最喜欢的《黑暗骑士》中小丑的一句台词是，他说人就像追车的狗；如果他们真的抓住了车，就不知道该怎么办。我觉得这同样适用于对成功或任何让你感到嫉妒的事物的追求。如果你得到了你嫉妒的东西，那又如何？就这样吗？你真的满意吗？
Chances are, you’ll be like the dog having caught the car. There’s simply nothing you could do, except one of two things:
你可能会像抓到车的狗一样，除了两件事情之外，你无能为力：
(1) Keep yourself busy by chasing another car, or
通过追赶另一辆车来让自己保持忙碌，或者
(2) Learn that this entire chase is pointless.
明白这场追逐完全是徒劳的。
#1 is what psychologists refer to as the hedonic treadmill, while #2 is what I refer to as the antidote to envy.
#1 是心理学家所说的享乐跑步机，而 #2 是我所称的对抗嫉妒的解药。
There is an interesting thing that happens when you see how society is organized into a giant game. You see the puppet strings of incentives and the invisible hierarchies that govern the way the pieces move, and this realization is both fascinating and disconcerting. No human being wants to be reduced to an algorithm, but it’s funny how if you get enough of us together, we behave in ways that are just as predictable as the execution of a file.
当你发现社会是如何被组织成一个巨大的游戏时，会发生一件有趣的事情。你会看到激励的线索和无形的等级制度，这些都支配着各个角色的移动方式，而这种认识既令人着迷又让人感到不安。没有人愿意被简化为一个算法，但有趣的是，当我们聚在一起时，我们的行为方式竟然和文件的执行一样可预测。
To see beyond the game is to direct your attention inward instead. Rather than chasing the next car, you’ll explore why you wanted to chase that car in the first place. Because if you explore your own mind’s motives in great detail, you’ll learn more about humankind than playing any game ever will.
超越游戏的视野就是将注意力转向内心。与其追逐下一辆车，不如思考你为什么想要追逐那辆车。因为如果你深入探讨自己内心的动机，你将比玩任何游戏都能更好地理解人类。
Whatever I am, that I want to understand.
我想理解我自己。
The reason why self-understanding leads to the elimination of envy is because when you explore the labyrinth of your mind, you simply have no room to want what another person has. There are more mysteries within the bounds of your own life than any novel can ever express, and this journey will take an entire lifetime to cover.
自我理解能够消除嫉妒的原因在于，当你深入探索自己内心的迷宫时，你根本没有时间去渴望他人所拥有的东西。在你自己的生活中，有比任何小说都更深奥的秘密，而这段旅程将需要一生的时间去探索。
Remember: You didn’t choose your genes, your parents, your upbringing, your interests. Pretty much everything of consequence is the result of happenstance, and that is where we all begin. We’re equipped with a mind and body that we didn’t choose, yet the temptation is to believe that we know who we are. Nothing could be further from the truth, and the way to get closer to this truth is not to compare yourself to another, but to know what “yourself” even means in the first place.
记住：你并没有选择自己的基因、父母、成长环境或兴趣。几乎所有重要的事情都是偶然的结果，这就是我们每个人的起点。我们拥有一个未曾选择的心智和身体，但我们常常倾向于相信自己知道自己是谁。实际上，这与真相相去甚远，而接近真相的方法不是与他人比较，而是首先弄清楚 “你自己” 究竟意味着什么。
At its core, self-understanding is a commitment to figuring out why you think the way you think. In my case, writing these kinds of essays is my way of understanding myself. I don’t do it to build an audience or to seek recognition for them. I do it because I want to explore why I struggle with the things I struggle with, and why I love the things I love. Given that I wasn’t the conscious agent that constructed my mind, it’s up to me to figure out what’s really going on underneath the hood of it all. No one can do that but me, and no one can do that for you but you.
自我理解的核心在于承诺去弄清楚你为什么会有这样的思维方式。对我来说，写这种类型的文章是我理解自己的方式。我这样做并不是为了吸引观众或寻求认可，而是想探索我为何在某些事情上感到挣扎，以及我为何热爱我所热爱的事物。因为我并不是构建自己思想的有意识主体，所以我必须弄清楚这一切背后真正发生了什么。除了我自己，没有人能做到这一点，而你也只能自己去做。
Envy is inversely correlated with self-examination. The less you know yourself, the more you look to others to get an idea of your worth. But the more you delve into who you are, the less you seek from others, and the dissolution of envy begins.
嫉妒与自我反省成反比关系。你对自己了解得越少，就越依赖他人来评估自己的价值。然而，当你深入探索自我时，就越不需要他人的看法，嫉妒也随之消散。
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For a deeper dive into envy, check out this piece:
如果想更深入地了解嫉妒，建议阅读这篇文章：
