[General] We prefer to envy others than work hard

[Silverobama]

Hi.

My cousin is envious of people who are better than him. He usually says "Wow, this man is rich", "Oh, he has a pretty wife", etc. And people like my cousin are everywhere. We tend to spend time envy others rather than to work hard to improve ourselves. I wrote "We'd rather spend time envying others than improving ourselves".

Is my italic sentence natural?

 

[Tarheel]

Hi.

My cousin is envious of people who are better off than him. He usually says "Wow, this man is rich", "Oh, he has a pretty wife", etc. And people like my cousin are everywhere. We tend to spend time envying others rather than working hard to improve ourselves. I wrote "We'd rather spend time envying others than improving ourselves".

Is my italic sentence natural?

Yes!

 

[Tarheel]

Working hard is, well, hard. It's easier to talk about people than it is to emulate them.

 

[Rover_KE]

I expect you realise that when you say "We'd rather spend time envying others than improving ourselves", you're including yourself in that remark.

To dissociate yourself from the thought, say "Some people would rather spend time envying others than improving themselves".

 

[GoesStation]

Be sure you don't drop "off" from the expression better off. "People who are better than him" would be people who are somehow objectively superior in an unspecified, general way. Such people don't exist. There are probably people who are better athletes, better writers, better engineers, etc., but there are no people who are simply "better".

 

[Tdol]

How about bettering ourselves?