Envy in its most basic form is a state of discontent and ill will directed at another person because of their advantages or possessions. Envy is always directed at another person. Envy in the sense of being a sin is not desiring to better oneself or one's family. Its cause is not in inequities of people nor even in the injustices but in the envier's relationships to these realities. It is the state of being diminished or disgraced because of other person's advantage or possessions. These might be wealth or power but also humility, goodness or creativity. Envy brings two types of negative action. It seeks revenge through bringing down the other person by pointing out their failures or by actually causing them to fail. It seeks self destruction through acquiescing to the sense of diminished worth and refusing to work to one's own potential. Envy tells that life is found in hating the neighbour. By its very nature it destroys genuine, free, open, creative human relationships.
Envy has been recognized as a profound human problem from the time of the early Greeks. One of Aesop's fables tells of Zeus granting to an envious man any wish he desired with one stipulation. His neighbour receives twice as much as the man. There was no limit on what could be asked for. The man wished for the loss of one eye, for the terms of the promise from Zeus was that the neighbour would be totally blinded. Envy for the Greeks was a destroyer.