There Is No Evil Eye
When everything is going well in your life, there is a natural tendency to share it with the world. You share what makes you happy. Maybe it is a promotion. A fancy trip. A loving and caring partner. Avoid it. Not because it attracts the evil eye. Not because it invites envy, although it does. That is not the reason.
Many times, your unintentional happiness becomes the cause of someone else’s misery. You are not responsible for that, but they will still hold you accountable for reminding them of what they are lacking in their own life. It is not easy for a suffering human being to feel genuine happiness for another. Try applauding a colleague who got the promotion you wanted. The cycle of envy is precisely why such acts of sharing often attract negative attention. The intentions are rarely malicious, but they are often misplaced.
It spoils your relationship with that person because you become a reminder of what they are missing in their life. You do not want that. But there is a deeper problem. The more you share your life, the more you begin to idealise it in your own head. A pleasant experience slowly turns into the ideal version of your life. A loving act from your partner becomes a benchmark. Before you realise it, you start holding them to those idealised standards.
Gradually, without you noticing, bitterness begins to creep in. You wonder what went wrong. The easy answer is the evil eye. But those pleasant experiences were never an ideal version of your life. They were simply yours. They were enjoyable. They brought you happiness. When you start idealising your life based on those moments, you also begin to worry about what others will think now that they know you are going through a difficult phase.
So you try to keep recreating those experiences, because you start believing that unless you live up to that idealised version, happiness will escape you. Does that mean we should not share anything about our lives? That would be equally wrong. It would make you appear suspicious to others.
The middle path is to be a good listener first. Listen to people’s stories. Most of the time, they want to talk about what is bothering them. They do not want to know what is happening in your life; they want to tell you about theirs. So listen. When you feel your experience can genuinely motivate or serve as a healthy reference point, only then should you contribute.
Take a simple conversation about good coffee in the morning. There are two kinds of responses. One is, “Oh, my husband decides which coffee we drink. He loves making coffee for both of us. It is our morning routine.” The other is, “We use this brand. It is good. You can try it.” If a follow-up question comes asking how you discovered it, then you add that your husband loves coffee and found it.
The same applies to negative experiences. Do not begin with your own sob story in the middle of someone else’s. Instead, say that something similar happened to you, explain what you did to deal with it, and suggest they try it if it helps. Conversations like these create a healthy environment. They may not give you the pleasure of narrating your personal anecdotes in full, but they make you appear helpful. They also allow others to understand your life, without burdening them with it.
In both cases, you are sharing your story in a way that does not overshadow someone else’s struggles. The goal is not to stop sharing, but to share according to the context. There is no evil eye. That eye is your own, when you choose to see an idealised life instead of the real one.