envy or admiration?

What could possibly make someone feel envious? What does envy even mean?

Achievement is a strange thing to witness. When the achievement is your own, you don’t know whether to celebrate like there is no tomorrow or just stay humble.

When the achievement is someone else’s, you could be ending up with two choices- admiration and envy. It is quite natural to feel envious. I have never known a person who hasn’t felt envious all his life. Do you think you have always admired everyone who has ever achieved something? No. Of course not.

What most of us feel is neither admiration nor envy. We feel mixed emotions. We often feel happy and feel envious at the same time. There is nothing more or less that we can do about it. It is just so normal. However, envy is a very strong emotion. Admiration is often quite feeble. Envy starts with jealousy and when you allow this emotion to grow stronger, it turns to envy.

Sounds confusing right? Emotions are like that. It is so difficult to classify an emotion. It is so difficult to suggest what exactly goes on in our own minds. So let’s understand what could be the difference between the two emotions that you can feel at the same time. Is it envy or is it admiration?

Below is my answer to the question-

What is the difference between admiration and envy?


This is the only difference between envy and admiration. When you look at someone else’s achievements, you can feel happy for the person. You believe that they have done something that they should have done to achieve what they have. In this case, you are just happy that they did something good and then you go on with your life like usual. That is good old admiration. Praise and move on.

You can also feel that the person did not deserve the achievement. You may believe that they have not done enough for getting what they got. You may believe that you deserve more than this person. In this case, you feel envious.

In the first case, you mental state is not affected much because of someone else’s achievement. You could praise, you could feel happiness and you may just feel serene. However, in the second case, your mind is often confused by the idea that someone else has something that you may or may not want, that you may or may not deserve or that they may or may not have worked hard enough for. This is called envy. You start comparing yourself with someone else and that creates a problem for you.

Read more answers on this question here.

7 thoughts on “What Is The Difference Between Envy and Admiration? Quora Answers”

  1. Correct! We just keep comparing ourselves with other people. We should realize we are good people. Thank you for the post. It just clarified my mind.

Leave a Reply
