I read the article, and I agree. I think back to those surveys/studies done along the lines of "would you rather have $200 and have someone else given $300, or have $100 and have someone else given $50?" The majority select the latter, they would rather get less because they do not want someone else to get more.
I was fortunate how my parents raised me. One of the things they would often quote was the saying "I was upset because I had no shoes, until I met someone who had no feet". They tried to instill in me and my siblings a sense of perspective, that while we were "unique", we were not inherently "special" to expect things - our "special" came from applying the talents we had.
I remember going to college, an Ivy League school, as a minority from a lower middle class background, wondering if I could compete and also being envious of what I saw others had, or of their backgrounds. Fortunately one of the "common sense" lessons I learned to combat envy was, if you feel envious towards someone, try to talk to them to see how they got to where they were. Yes, there were some idiots, but the vast majority were not, and I made me more comfortable and confident in understanding that my priority was to focus on my skills and abilities. Being envious of others was a distraction that would hurt my own skills and abilities. As side impact that I did not realize at the time was that I was, in a sense, "networking", which paid off in several ways down the line.
