Lex Fridman: belief

Transcript context

…Yeah, envy is a really bad one. Pride and envy are among the worst. Those are the sins of Cain, by the way, in the story of Cain and Abel, because Cain fails because his sacrifices are insufficient. He doesn’t offer his best. And so he’s rejected and that makes him bitter and unhappy. And he goes to complain to God, and God says to him two things. God tells him, “If your sacrifices were appropriate, you’d be accepted.” It’s a brutal thing. It’s a brutal rejoinder. And he also says, “You can’t blame your misery on your failure. You could learn from your failure. When you failed, you invited in the spirit of envy and resentment, and you allowed it to possess you. And that’s why you’re miserable.” And so Cain is embittered by that response, and that’s when he kills Abel. You might say, well, how do you fortify yourself against that pathway of resentment? Part of classic religious practice is aimed to do that precisely. What’s the antithesis of envy? Gratitude. That’s something you can practice. And I mean, literally practice. I think envy is one of the biggest enemies for a young person because basically you’re starting from nowhere. Life is hard. You’ve achieved nothing. And you’re striving and you’re failing constantly because… And you see other people whom you think aren’t having the same problem.…

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