“Envy occurs most commonly and painfully among friends.”
The Laws of Human Nature, Chapter 10, The Law of Envy
Quote
“Envy occurs most commonly and painfully among friends.” — Robert Greene
Explanation
The majority of severe envy attacks we face come from our friends, not our enemies.
Example
There are two main reasons why your friends are more envious than your enemies.
Firstly, your friends are incredibly close—they see your success in more detail than anyone else; they see how well things are going for you, that everything in your life is truly falling into place; they compare your story to theirs. With such close proximity, it is inevitable that your less successful friends become deeply jealousy.
Secondly, those who are naturally envious of you are instinctually intrigued by you. These types will seek to get close to you, doing so by disguising themselves as friends. With this new, overly-interested individual getting closer and closer, they begin to see more and more of your life. This “friend’s” new-found perspective causes a continual cycle of ever-growing envy—the closer they get, the more they see, the more jealous they get (this process repeats in a circle indefinitely).
There are also two reasons why your friend’s envy causes more damage than your enemy’s.
With friends being part of your personal life, they know your deepest weaknesses, insecurities and failings. With such information, they can target very specific chinks in your armour—they know exactly which buttons to press and when. This type of incredibly precise attack has the potential to cause you an awful lot of damage in a very short space of time.
On the other hand, a distant enemy lacks any sort of personal information that could be leveraged against you—they are totally blind to your true vulnerabilities. This lack of insight results in a fairly weak and irrelevant attack.
Regardless of where it’s coming from (friend or enemy), the self-reinforcing cycle of envy will create such palpable and uncontrollable resentment that your attacker’s true emotions will inevitably manifest in some form or another. This could be an almighty direct attack, a number of subtle sabotages, or simply recurring backhanded comments.