St. Thomas Aquinas’ definition: “Envy is an irrational anger at the success of others.”
A writer describes envy this way: “When a friend of mine succeeds something in me dies.”
A close relative of envy is ambition. If envy is an irrational anger at the success of others, one way of dealing with that is by pulling people down, and another way is by pulling relentlessly yourself up. Ambition makes you try hard to get ahead of others. You are always competing fiercely and you are persistently striving to succeed in order to match or top the success of others.
Envy vs Jealousy —- Envy is when you want what someone else has, but jealousy is when you’re worried someone’s trying to take what you have.
You can feel envy about something you don’t have but want, but you feel jealousy over something you already have but are afraid of losing. An example of jealous is a husband who dislikes other men looking at his wife.
ROJoson Notes on Life 