Joseph Epstein in a timely piece on the nature of Envy:
“A self-poisoning of the mind, envy is usually less about what one lacks than about what other people have. A strong element of the begrudging resides in envy, thus making the envious, as Immanuel Kant remarked in The Metaphysics of Morals, ‘intent on the destruction of the happiness of others.’ ”
I must confess, as a writer, what I more often than not find myself envying is not so much other writers’ success as I do their luck.