Be grateful for what you have

Sep 28, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – You can go to the doctor and get tablets for high blood pressure. You can get medication for diabetes. You can even get something to help you sleep after spending the entire night worrying about whether somebody else has more money than you.

But if your neighbour buys a new car, there is no prescription that will stop you from immediately asking how he could afford it. This, the Guru tells me, is because envy is not really a disease of the wallet; it is a disease of the mind. I once complained to the Guru about a man who had suddenly become very successful. “He has a beautiful house, a new SUV and a business that seems to be doing very well,”

The Guru looked at me. “And?”

“And I don’t think he deserves all of it.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then you have made an important discovery,” the Guru said.

“What discovery?”

“That you are jealous without even having the courtesy to provide yourself with evidence.”

This is where Hindu philosophy becomes rather inconvenient. In Hindu religious teachings, Krishna describes the qualities of the spiritually developed person. He speaks of someone who is free from malice, friendly and compassionate, free from excessive attachment and ego, and content with what he has.

In other words, the Guru explains, the cure for envy is not to make sure that everybody else has less. It is to stop measuring your happiness against everybody else’s possessions. This is harder than it sounds. Suppose two friends start businesses at roughly the same time. One struggles for several years and eventually becomes successful. The other struggles too, but his business never really takes off.

When the first man buys a house, the second says, “Good for him.” When he buys a second car, he says, “He working hard.” When he expands the business, he says, “He was always ambitious.” But then somebody tells him that the man has just bought a third car. Now suddenly an investigation begins. “Where he getting all this money from?” Within twenty-four hours, the neighbour has become the subject of an unofficial Commission of Inquiry. This is envy at work. The interesting thing is that nothing has actually been taken away from the jealous person. His house is still his house. His car is still his car. His children are still his children. His business is still his business. Yet somebody else’s success has somehow reduced his happiness.

Hindu teachings offer another way of looking at the problem. The Gita repeatedly returns to the importance of mastering desire, attachment and ego. One of its central observations is that when the mind becomes fixated upon objects, attachment develops, and attachment can lead to desire, anger and eventually a loss of judgment.

Envy begins when we start keeping accounts of other people’s lives. He has a bigger house. She got promoted. They bought a new car. He travelled to the United States and stayed at a hotel.  She sent her children overseas. They have a swimming pool. He has three businesses. And then comes the most dangerous question in Guyana: “Why he?” That question has destroyed many perfectly peaceful afternoons. The Guru says the better question is: “What can I learn from him?”

That is the difference between envy and inspiration. If another person’s success reveals something that you can learn, learn it. If it shows you an opportunity, pursue it. If it demonstrates what discipline can achieve, become more disciplined. But if another person’s success merely makes you miserable, you have allowed someone else’s happiness to become the price of your own. And that is a terrible bargain.

There is another important lesson. It is contentment. The Guru explains that contentment does not mean refusing to improve yourself. “Contentment,” he says, “does not mean you must be satisfied with everything. It means you don’t have to hate somebody because they have something you want.”

You can want a better house without resenting the person who already has one. You can want a promotion without hoping your colleague fails. You can admire someone’s success without secretly praying for a power outage during their victory celebration. And you can work hard to improve your own circumstances without turning another person’s prosperity into an insult to your own existence.

The Guru has one final warning. “Remember,” he says, “envy makes you look at another person’s blessing and call it your misfortune.”

Perhaps that is why envy is so exhausting. The jealous person is forced to spend his own life inspecting somebody else’s. He watches what they buy. He counts what they earn. He notices where they travel. He studies who visits them. He calculates what they have. And while doing all this, he forgets to live his own life. The Guru’s prescription, therefore, is remarkably simple. Work for what you want. Be grateful for what you have. Learn from those who succeed. Celebrate the good fortune of others where you can.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)

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• blood pressure, diabetes, grateful, Peeping Tom

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