From the author: The article was published on Psinavigator and my website Mention of this feeling can be found in almost any written source of antiquity from Egyptian papyri to modern literature; a rare work of art does without the description and presence of this feeling. In its own way its effect on a person is comparable only with love and jealousy.. This feeling is called envy, adultery, zadrist, invidia, envy, ressentiment, jealousy, nade, neid, gelosia, nag, zloba, husuda, avund, αιτία φιλονικίας etc. Envy is mother for many feelings, it is close in nature to greed and the same jealousy, which is the envy of relationships. If we translate the definition of envy from the psychological dictionary into ordinary language, we can say that envy arises when a person evaluates his real or imaginary advantages in various areas and spheres of life (material, social, physical..) in comparison with those of another person or group of people, as insufficient, insignificant. Envy grows well on the soil of a person’s wounded self-worth, when there is a feeling that he is deprived and this “unfair deprivation” is generalized to the fear of losing one’s personal value. That is. envy hides a feeling of inferiority, i.e. assessing oneself as unable to achieve one’s desire, to realize one’s aspiration. Envy is, first of all, doubt in oneself, when a person cannot identify and delimit his own, recognize it as important, necessary and valuable for himself, worthy of existing, even when others may not notice or appreciate it. I have experienced the feeling of envy at least once in life, each of us! It has many faces and can manifest itself at different levels: 1. at the level of consciousness - as a discovery of one’s lower status, competence...2. at the level of emotional experience - it can manifest itself as an emotion (situational envy, a slight feeling of annoyance, irritation), as a feeling (sustained envy with elements of anger and aggression), as passion (all-encompassing envy, hatred)3. at the level of behavior - from presented ignorance, hostility towards the “envied” to the destruction of the object of envy, mastery of it with the help of force. The triad of envy: greed - when a person envies the material wealth of others, ambition - is determined by envy of a career, dependence on the height of social status, level of power - vanity - shows a person’s dependence on social recognition, number of awards, degree of popularity, etc. However, knowing well how and why a person experiences envy, we still do not have an answer to the question, why do we need it? Let's think over this issue. Envy always manifests itself in interpersonal relationships, i.e. it is not biologically determined, it is always socially formed, i.e. is born when there is constant comparison and evaluation of oneself and others. Entire industries are built on this comparison, and numerous types of neuroses arise in humans. Many parents, and then teachers and friends, willingly or not, contribute to the fact that we form this feeling in ourselves. The media - television, magazines, radio stations compare us, and then exploit us, showing and proving to us that as we are, we are imperfect, ugly, unsuccessful... We have an imperfect figure, an outdated car-computer-phone, unfashionable clothes, we have caries, dandruff, baldness, cellulite, etc. We are not 100% perfect at anything. But we don't have to be perfect. We must be ourselves. The benefit of envy is that it unmasks the nature of human feelings, i.e. the very nature of man. It makes obvious what seems hidden. Envy points a person to his own interest and unfulfilled desire, to something to which he does not put enough effort and effort or has chosen the wrong path to realize his needs, dreams. The difficulty is that a person does not like to notice unpleasant to oneself, so rarely anyone can notice!