WE CAN DO BETTER!! (THE POWER OF CONSTRUCTIVE ENVY)

Envy is a natural and common phenomenon in the lives of humans. But the ways we transform this feeling is what matters. Some

Envy has always been seen as the source of evil and therefore we must avoid it, is it always so?

I think not, I have come to realize that it is a great factor of motivation and a contributor to development. It can be seen in two folds, destructive and constructive envy.  Destructive envy is a resentful or unhappy feeling of wanting somebody else’s success, good fortune, qualities, or possessions. This is when you want to undermine the progress achievement of another person. What I’m interested in the construction envy, this is where you want to be even or surpass the success or achievement of another person.

Constructive envy should be promoted in Liberia to enhance creativity and encourage self-initiatives, personal, community or national development. If John can do it, I too can.

It should be promoted at work places to yield efficiency among staff, Liberia needs dedicated work force who individually wants to be the best. Example, If Cecilia can do all of her reports and assigned task on time and always get the praises of the boss, don’t hinder or do things to stall her work. Instead, work over time to complete all your assigned duties before Cecilia does.

Parents should teach their kids how to handle the feeling of destructive envy and transform it into constructive envy. Bring up your child in a way that he or she may not depart from it. This is essential during the growth of a child because at young ages, they do envy a lot of things.

How can the use of constructive envy help build a better Liberia? This is a question I will attempt to answer, but will leave to us Liberians to answer.

We do talk of how Ghanians are very nationalistic, I would suggest that we do the same and learn to love our country Liberia from our very existence.

Lets learn to put Liberia first.

We must learn to promote our own culture and not adopt that of another country

we must learn to listen to our own music. Lets play more of our local music on our radios.

We must feel that we are the best and come second to none.

We must learn to proudly speak our local vernaculars  

We must believe that Liberia will rise and become a great nation, but it starts with our individual actions.

We must work for our country like it’s our own private company. We must believe in ourselves.

Liberia will rise in no time if its citizens are competitive as they strive to individually reach the top.

We must learn to work hard to rise above others and not bring them down to our level.

These are some of the ways citizens of other countries contributed to the development of their great nations.

Let’s envy them and say “WE CAN DO BETTER!” and it starts today.