Dante had a particularly gruesome punishment for the envious: their eyes were wired shut. In this episode of Office Hours, I explore why envy is such a powerful happiness killer—and how to stop feeding it in your own life.

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Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

7:15 Dante’s Divine Comedy

11:56 Definition of envy and its purpose

18:46 Benign and malicious envy

24:13 The effects on the brain when you’re feeling envy

28:30 What people envy

33:25 5 ways to be less envious and much happier

45:06 Q&A: Four classic temperaments

46:34 Q&A: Developing your PhD research question

48:40 Q&A: Romantic love: addiction or happiness?

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Referenced:

• The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/the-meaning-of-your-life

• Arthur’s newsletter: https://www.arthurbrooks.com/newsletter

• The Happiness Scale: https://learn.arthurbrooks.com/the-happiness-scale

• Dante’s Purgatorio, Canto 13: http://dantelab.dartmouth.edu/reader?reader%5Bcantica%5D=2&reader%5Bcanto%5D=13

• Josef Epstein. Envy: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00VQVKUPC?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

•Envy: An Adversarial Review and Comparison of Two Competing Views: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1754073919873131

•The Role of Subjective and Objective Social Status in the Generation of Envy: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.513495/full

•When your gain is my pain and your pain is my gain: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19213918/

•Is envy harmful to a society's psychological health and wellbeing?: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29316510/

•Envy: Functional specificity and sex-differentiated design features: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2012-11291-001

•What to Do When Social Media Inspires Envy: https://daily.jstor.org/what-to-do-when-social-media-inspires-envy/

•Mitigating malicious envy: Why successful individuals should reveal their failures: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-11196-001

•How gratitude inhibits envy: From the perspective of positive psychology: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33300284/

•Bragging and humblebragging in online reviews: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160738319302063?casa_token=2WdCSNbKzdQAAAAA:2PlvLLvja-2c9_454Rnb8h9GB55Kt0Rg3A1pY7XpBxksabWaNZBsbdjbnay4DhKlrJXhk-aEow

• ...References continued at: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.arthurbrooks.com/office-hours⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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5 Ways to Kill Your Envy and Get Happier

Office Hours with Arthur Brooks

5 Ways to Kill Your Envy and Get Happier