When you're envious of another, you lose sight of your own uniqueness

It's easy for us singles to be envious.

We imagine that married couples' lives are so much more fulfilling than ours. We crave the love and affection a marriage partner would bring, and we often think that if only our life was like theirs, we'd finally be happy.
Part of this feeling comes from our culture. Most advertising is geared toward making us dissatisfied, implying that if only we own a certain product or buy some service, it will solve all our problems. If we fall into that trap of searching for the "silver bullet," we find ourselves constantly discontented.
Surprisingly, many married folks don't have it as good as we imagine. The fact that about half of today's marriages end in divorce shows that many marriages are in trouble.

Never satisfied, never happy

Being envious of others is an easy way to make yourself very unhappy. I should know. I was jealous of other people for much of my life.
When I went to art school, I was envious of the other students' talent. I was envious of comic book artists who were able to realize their dream, while I could not. For many years, I was jealous of successful novelists.

We don't have to look very hard to find something to be resentful about. Whether it's another person's career success, appearance, or wealth, we imagine that they're so much happier than we are.
It's a treadmill that's hard to get off, and like a treadmill, it takes us no where.
God saw the danger in this kind of lust thousands of years ago and banned it in his Tenth Commandment:

"You shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not set your desire on your neighbor's house or land, his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
 
Nobody uses the word "covet" any more, so we think we're not breaking this commandment when we envy someone. But the two words are interchangeable.

The real danger in envy

By focusing so much on another person and what they have, we forget about what we have. We become ungrateful. We spend so much time comparing ourselves to others that we fail to develop our own talents and abilities.

God wants us to become the person he created us to be, not a copy of another. The breathtaking aspect of God's creation is that everything is unique. Even two sparrows that appear identical truly are not--and as we all know, God values us so much more than sparrows.
Sometimes it's hard to find our own talent, so we try to emulate another's. But talent, like personalities, is also unique. There are thousands of Elvis impersonators, but there was only one Elvis!
God will help you find your talent and abilities if you ask him; he'll also help you develop them. And most of all, he will help you grow those qualities that make you like Jesus. That's something worthwhile to aspire to, not be envious about.

Where to start

o stop being envious of others, we have to recognize the true value in ourself. This starts with building our self-esteem.
When we understand that our worth comes not from something we do, something we own, or what we look like, but from our relationship with Jesus Christ, we've made the first big step in booting jealousy out of our life.

It was a struggle for me. It took years. I had to let go of some of my dreams, but God gave me new ones, dreams he custom-made to my talents and desires.
You can root envy out of your life, too. How much more exciting it is to build your own life instead of being a knock-off of another's. What a thrill it is when God arranges circumstances and introduces people to help you grow.

This is one of the most electrifying parts of the Christian adventure.
Don't worry about what someone else is or can do. Concentrate on being the best you that you can be. When you do, God will pour so much excitement into your life that envy will become a thing of the past.

 

5 Tips on How to Build an Envious Twitter Following

If you're new to Twitter or have an account but just haven't put it to good use listen up as I've got some tips for you on how to get Twitter followers, and not just any followers but followers who will be interested in what you have to say on the micro-blogging platform.

1. Promote Intriguing Content

This may go without saying however the more often you tweet, naturally the more followers you will receive. And to do this you don't need to create your own content if you don't want to. One of the quickest ways is to share worthwhile articles and blog posts that you find online written by others.

2. Look for Highly Rated Twitter Users to Follow

Not sure how to tell who is worthy of following and who is not? One way is to look for Twitter users who are being followed by many but who aren't following people themselves. The larger the disparity between followers and people following, more likely than not the more influential that Twitter user is.
Another way to determine whether a person is worthy to follow or not is to refer to the number of lists that the individual is apart of. The higher the number, the higher the chance of the person being influential.

3. Be Yourself

To increase your number of followers, being personal goes a long way. It's really all about establishing a connection with them, which means that you don't upload a random picture as your Twitter avatar but rather use a head shot for people to identify with you. The rule of transparency should be adhered to at all times possible.

4. Focus on Keyword-Rich Content

The name of the game to be found by others really boils down to "keyword-rich content". What this means is making sure your Twitter profile and tweets are optimized correctly for being found by others searching for certain key phrases and words on Twitter.

What you do want to avoid those is a practice known as "keyword stuffing", which means that your profile and/or tweets become unreadable due to having too many of your keywords strung next to one another.
A good point to remember is to keep a good balance between legibility and enriched keywords.

5. Allow Leeway for Retweets

Another way to increase your following on Twitter is to have your tweets retweeted by others. If you provide good content, people will pick it up and spread the word about it to their friends and followers. But in order for this to happen, there has to be enough space in your original tweet for the characters "RT" (retweet) and your Twitter name to be inserted by another Twitter user. Therefore as a rule to follow, I would advise against maximizing out your 140 character space and instead limit yourself to about 120 characters.
As there are many tips and tricks of the trade when it comes to Twitter and tweeting, hopefully this will give you a start in the right direction when it comes to getting Twitter followers.