For the most part our minds are geared to taking the easy way out of life and in the modern world we seem to have taken the easy way out to an extreme.   The cultural learning is that a physical pleasure gives you a non-material or permanent quality.  Look at this ad.

This ad teaches you the cultural lesson that everyone is supposed to learn and most people do that if you if you drink something that you are going to end up in huge bliss.   Our rational scientific minds are easily overthrown by this ad.  The lesson is that you can get lasting joy in a physical object.  It doesn’t show you that the woman who is going to satisfy your lust is going to wake up one day really pissed at the way you act.   Here is another one.

It would be really nice if this actually worked, that you could drink a beer and then be really happy and joyful.  The purpose of the ad is to get you to believe it.  Most people do because it is unconscious and everywhere.   Spirituality comes in a can.  If we have trouble persevering, being enthusiastic, caring, honest, trusting, or thinking for ourselves, then we can just drink a beer and we will have it.  Getting better is about getting high physically first and then you will have the quality.

The culture teaches us all from a very early age through the quality of envy.   Envy is the ego trait of wanting a spiritual state through using physical means, i.e., taking the easy way out.   When we envy, we obsess on a physical object such as a relationship because we believe that it is going to bring us some measure of happiness.   It is what shopaholics do.   The new “whatever” will give me whatever I really need internally.    Envy is the destroyer of a positive life and the ability to make a better world.     If I want to do something positive, whatever it is, then envy teaches me to take short cuts when I do not have the skills or capacities to do the positive thing.    Whenever I have a really worthy goal such as building a bridge of friendship between two antagonistic groups, then when I run into the least bit of difficulty, the cultural teaches me to go out and drink a beer or two and then go back and do the same thing that didn’t work before.   This is the core of envy.   Instead of doing the tough inner work where you have to face your own fears and demons,  envy teaches us to leave our problems at the bar stool.

If you were a scientist and could really analyze what beer does, it is just so simple.  It gives you a few moments of feeling relaxed.  Then it is over.  You go back to how you were before the beer.  So if you were fearful and angry before the beer, now you are going to be the same afterward.    The promise of envy is that the fear will go away, but it doesn’t.     It just stays.   It is fixed until I actually do the work with the fear.  By having envy and believing in the beer the fear can have a permanent fixed home inside of you without ever having to worry about getting removed.   Envy keeps the fears inside forever.   And what is even greater for our fears is that we have a whole culture aligned in making us feel comfortable that it is ok to have fear and use material means to alleviate the negativity they bring.

I am not so sure that any of us are free of this scourge of modern life.  It used to be that we had qualities like modesty and moderation,  which are designed to keep life real, but the excesses of materialism are so huge inside of us that they are nearly impossible to resist.    You know you are trouble whenever you believe that something new or someone else or something you eat or drink or take in is going to make you happy.

What makes life work are inner qualities.   It is so simple.   What makes life destroyed is envy.   It is the big killer.

Here is what you can do when you are feeling envious, i.e., when you are feeling like you want someone or something to make you feel better about yourself and your life.    Envy starts by seeing a material object that you believe will bring you great joy like a new designer bag or a piece of jewelry.    You focus on your imagination repeatedly until the image is stuck, and you can’t get out of it.  It sustains itself by the believing that it will bring you joy.    Then you go after the material object and it gives you some moments of bliss.  You are really satisfied.  Not long after the temporary joy goes away and then the cycle begins all over again.

The purpose of the envy always always always is to cover up a fear, but it is difficult to go after the fear when you are overcome by desire.  The desire usually wins because it is so packed with the promise of joy.   Now you have a closet full of bags.  When you have this type of envy, which most of us do in the modern world, you can stop it by realizing that when you are overcome by it, it is because you fear that you are not enough inside.    The fear triggers envy because it wants to feel like it is enough so it keeps trying to get more material to fill it.   It is sort of like the way Donald Trump buys buildings and businesses.

The key is to begin to feel enough inside and the way to do feel like you are enough is to fill up yourself with positive memories all the time.   Positive memories shown inside your mind to yourself constantly alleviate the pressure of envy because when you are enough, then you don’t need to constantly buy or get beer to bring us joy or to forget how crappy we feel about ourselves.

Everyone feels better and comes into better balance when they are reminded of their positive attributes and actions.   When you are seen as positive and remember it,  then you don’t have to fill your life with worthless relationships that go nowhere.

Everyday for a week before you go to bed make the habit of writing down 5 positive attributes that you did that day then relive the event consciously in your mind with knowing you are using the positive quality.   So maybe for instance, you showed kindness to a stranger or were courageous in bringing up a difficult subject or finished a job you normally dislike.   Write them down and then relive the quality in your mind.