In her new book, Envy, Stacy Kim explains how to understand the feeling, identify your deeper desires and use them to achieve your goals

In the 16th-century poem The Faerie Queene, envy is a ghoulish figure riding a ravenous wolf, sad to see the fortune of others and “wonderous glad” of their hardship. It’s not a flattering depiction; better to be thankful for what we have, rather than dwell on such a bitter and self-destructive feeling, right?

Maybe not. “I think that when we don’t examine our envy, that’s when it leads us astray,” says Dr Stacy Kim, social scientist, life coach and author of the new book Envy: Why Wanting What They Have is the Key to Getting What You Want. Kim wrote the book after seeing the way envy came up for her coaching clients and reflecting on the role it had in her own life. The book is informed by social science and philosophy research, as well as her personal and professional experiences.

Similar target: “You remind yourself: ‘Hey, the reason why I’m feeling this envy is because what I want is within my reach,’” she says.

Intangible desire, as mentioned above

Relevant comparison: Identify which specific domain – something you care about or already participate in – is relevant to your desires

Negative emotion: How long does it last? How intense is the message it’s sending? This tells us how important the feeling is.

Envy by Stacy S. Kim is out now. To support the Guardian, order your copy of the UK edition at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.

Before being rescued, he had an extremely traumatic experience. You’d never know it though, from the joy his patience and sunny nature bring to those who most need him

In December 2024, my kerry blue terrier, Magnus, died suddenly from a stroke at the age of nine. Devastated, I started looking at rescue dogs on Facebook and came across Clement, who was being looked after by a shelter in Romania. It wasn’t his appearance that caught my attention, but his heartbreaking story.

An eight-year-old mixed-breed rescue, Clement had spent most of his life with a woman living with Alzheimer’s. One day, she accidentally let him out. He was hit by a car, attacked by two large dogs and left in a ditch for three days in the snow before being rescued by chance. When I read this, I knew I had to take him in.

A Trump administration doctor says neon yellow urine is normal because of diets consisting entirely of meat and fermented foods. Here’s what experts say

A doctor who advises several Trump cabinet members on their diets rhapsodized this summer about having urine the color of Mountain Dew, thanks to a diet consisting entirely of meat and fermented foods.

What you consume does determine what you see in the toilet. But should urine be neon yellow – or some other hue? Here’s what you need to know.

A new report has found many crops are far less nutritious than they once were, so we need to eat more of them. Here is how to get your five portions of fruit and veg a day, easily and affordably – and potentially increase that to ten

When Eva Humphries first started working as a nutritionist, she met a client who had just found out he had high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and was on the verge of type 2 diabetes. He had no idea how to change his diet or lifestyle.

The man broke down and cried for 45 minutes, leaving Humphries with “no idea of what to do”, she says. In the final 15 minutes of the session, scrambling for a quick but helpful message, she finally said: “When you look at a plate of food, can you just make half of it veg for me?”

Sewage samples and crime statistics paint a picture of established users taking more cocaine, more often

• Cocaine-linked crimes on the rise in Britain as consumption surges

• Pubs, festivals and workplaces: how cocaine has become an everyday habit

From pub toilets and private parties to football terraces and far-right marches, cocaine has become a familiar presence across modern Britain. Deaths linked to the drug have risen to record levels, while its supply supports a multibillion-pound criminal industry.

But who is using the drug, and how has the picture changed? The figures do not necessarily show millions of new users, but highlight an established market in which some people take more cocaine, more often – and face greater harm as they grow older.

Their hopes of having a second child were dashed. Two decades on, the actor remembers the grief and pain of that time

“I’m afraid this cycle has not been successful.” Emma and I cannot catch each other’s eye. We sit mute in our grief in the silence of the IVF doctor’s office. This is a kind of grief that is often not understood even to be grief at all. A grief about the loss of a potential child. An anticipatory grief – a grief for something that hasn’t yet appeared – a mourning for a possibility, of a longed-for future life to welcome, love and nurture. And there are no set grief rituals for this – for a child never present – no space in our society to mark, to grieve an actual physical death. It is a silent, achingly lonely, atomised grief. We had undergone many attempts in the years after the birth of our daughter Gaia. But that did not make this any easier.

Each cycle, each time we sat in that office, we had to ignore our grief and concentrate wholeheartedly and positively on our next attempt. We didn’t access any help over this time. We didn’t seek out counselling as a couple. I had no knowledge of how to process my grief – compounded month on month. Further cycles, more drugs, more fertility hormones, more ovarian hyperstimulation, injections, scans, blood tests came and went, all proving unsuccessful. I supported all wholeheartedly, but Emma was devastated by her inability to conceive again. In her mind, she had failed and could not forgive herself for that failure. And nothing I could say would change her point of view.

People succumbed to heat at highest rates in Malta, Italy and Hungary, with health issues, loneliness and poverty exacerbating toll

Heat killed a record 50,000 people in European cities this summer, new research suggests, with scientists blaming climate breakdown for two in every three of the deaths.

Morgues and funeral homes filled with bodies from June to August as the heat added by planet-baking pollution cut short an extra 32,000 lives in urban areas, the researchers found. Hot days pushed vulnerable bodies into overdrive and warm nights prevented them from recovering.

Case filed in 2022 by patient unable to afford medicine leads to cap on drug prices for millions who face ruin if diagnosed

The Indian government has moved to reduce the price of cancer drugs after a retired bank clerk took her case to the supreme court.

From next month, 137 cancer drugs in India will be cheaper as the government tries to tackle the tragedy of poorer patients either forgoing treatment, selling land or falling into debt to meet the high cost of some medicines, which are making large profits for hospitals and pharmacists.

Alois uses the first veto of his reign to quash parliament-approved bill backed by a national petition

The hereditary prince of Liechtenstein has used his veto for the first time in his reign to quash a bill aimed at bringing abortion laws in line with much of Europe.

The legislation was approved by Liechtenstein’s parliament last month after the presentation of a citizens’ initiative signed by roughly a quarter of the nation’s voters.

Investigations under way to determine whether virus normally found in livestock contributed to man’s death

A man in France has become the first human known to have contracted Shamonda virus, with investigations under way to explore whether it contributed to his death.

Shamonda virus is a type of bunyavirus and is spread by bites from infected midges. According to the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, in animals such as cattle, sheep and goats it can cause diarrhoea, lack of appetite and a decline in milk yield, “as well as abortions and congenital abnormalities in newborn calves, lambs and kids”.

You Can See Everything, a documentary about the disgraced biotech company founder Elizabeth Holmes, has enjoyed a record-breaking opening in the US. It is a testament to how fascinated we remain by the convicted fraudster, but what is behind the enduring appeal? US technology editor Blake Montgomery tells Madeleine Finlay why Holmes continues to fascinate us, and reflects on whether the Theranos scandal has had a permanent impact on Silicon Valley

The Cali Fund, set up to raise $1bn a year for biodiversity from drug companies, remains near empty

Big pharmaceutical companies have been accused of “free-riding on nature”, after a landmark biodiversity fund that invites businesses to put some of their profits back into conservation was left virtually empty.

The Cali Fund set out to raise $1bn (£750m) annually, by asking companies that profit from nature’s genetics to contribute towards conservation in low-income countries. But more than 18 months after the fund was launched, it remains far below this target.

You Can See Everything, a documentary about the disgraced biotech company founder Elizabeth Holmes, has enjoyed a record-breaking opening in the US. It is a testament to how fascinated we remain by the convicted fraudster, but what is behind the enduring appeal? US technology editor Blake Montgomery tells Madeleine Finlay why Holmes continues to fascinate us, and reflects on whether the Theranos scandal has had a permanent impact on Silicon Valley

Clip: You Can See Everything, A24

‘You can’t make this stuff up’: why we remain fascinated by Elizabeth Holmes

Medics indicate pontiff’s tumour had not spread, but doubts remain about planned trip to South America next month

Pope Leo will not need any further ⁠treatment after undergoing lung cancer surgery last week, his doctors said, indicating ⁠that his tumour had ⁠not ​spread.

The ⁠71-year-old pontiff had the lower lobe of his ​right lung removed on 13 October and was diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma, the most ‌common form of lung cancer.

Hepatitis B study in Guinea-Bissau that was to be funded by CDC and that drew global backlash ‘will not move forward’

The US-backed hepatitis B vaccine trial in African newborns that drew global backlash was halted, the lead researcher said on Wednesday.

It was “now clear” that the study “will not move forward in Guinea-Bissau”, Frederik Schaltz-Buchholzer, a Danish researcher, wrote on LinkedIn, adding, “we were not given the necessary governmental approval.”

Measures would remove some penalties for those helping women access abortion but are ‘small-scale step’, say campaigners

Poland’s lower house of parliament has approved two bills aimed at loosening a near-total ban on abortions, in what campaigners have described as a “small-scale step” ahead of protests calling on the government to fulfil its promises to overhaul the country’s laws.

The new measures, which are likely to be vetoed by Poland’s nationalist president, would remove some of the criminal penalties for those who help women to access abortion care and allow terminations in cases of foetal abnormalities.

Pippa Boardman said she lost her dignity through data breach at Royal Cornwall hospital by man she barely knew

A woman was told she had cancer by a hospital employee she barely knew who had accessed her medical records days before she was due to receive test results from her consultant.

Pippa Boardman said she lost her dignity and privacy through the data breach at the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro.

Case in Africa’s most populous country was detected in a woman who had travelled from Uganda

Nigeria has confirmed an Ebola case in its capital, Abuja, after a woman who arrived from Uganda tested positive for the virus, the health ministry said.

The woman began showing symptoms on 7 October and was admitted to a hospital in Abuja four days later, where she was later diagnosed with Ebola. It is unclear when she arrived in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country.

The government did not throw a ‘protective ring’ around social care, and vulnerable people were left exposed

The families of the 43,000 care home residents in the UK whose deaths between March 2020 and July 2022 were either caused by, or contributed to, by the Covid pandemic, have waited a long time for the official verdict on the way they were treated. The report published on Tuesday confirmed what many have been saying for a long time. In the first, panicked stages of lockdown, residents and their care workers were “something of an afterthought”. The “protective ring” around care homes referred to by Matt Hancock, the former health and care secretary, was a fiction.

These are scathing judgments. What actually happened, starting in March 2020, was that about 30,000 people were discharged from hospital to care homes in order to free up beds for Covid-19 patients. Since there were not enough tests for all of them, those without symptoms were moved without being tested. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, there was no instruction to isolate newly arrived residents until the second half of April (in Scotland, this happened earlier).

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.