Counting Other People's Blessings

数着别人的祝福

Hidden Brain

社会科学

2018-02-27

49 分钟
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Envy is one of the most unpleasant of all human emotions. It also turns out to be one of the most difficult for researchers to study. And yet, there's mounting evidence that envy is a powerful motivator. This week, we explore an emotion that can inspire us to become better people — or to commit unspeakable acts.
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  • This is hidden brain.

  • I'm Shankar Vedanta.

  • Way back in the third century AD, a monk in the egyptian desert warned of evil spirits people should try to overcome.

  • In Christianity, these became known as the seven deadly sins.

  • Pride, gluttony, greed, lust, sloth, wrath, and one more, envy.

  • It's an ugly, miserable, unflattering emotion, and it's universal.

  • Everyone at some time or another will experience this feeling of wanting what someone else has and resenting them for having it.

  • Hi, my name is Jessica Kyle from Atlanta, Georgia.

  • In 2014, Jessica and her best friend traveled to the remote Comoros islands in the Indian Ocean.

  • They were there to teach English.

  • It was meant to be a grand adventure and could have been a high point in their friendship.

  • Except Jessica and her friend got sick, really sick, with dengue fever.

  • I was single and she was married to a doctor, and her husband was really worried about her and was able to get her evacuated to Kenya, to.

  • Nairobi, to be exact, to a hospital with air conditioning, good food, and excellent medical care.

  • Jessica, meanwhile, was stuck on the island.

  • Where it was about 100 degrees and we had no electricity and I was very hot and didn't have any good food.

  • Jessica couldn't stop thinking about how her friend was getting much better care than she was now.

  • Besides being sick, Jessica felt she was suffering from a new malaise.

  • I was really, really envious of her to the point where it was actually physically painful, other than just having dengue fever.

  • That envy I felt because I wanted to be in her place.