Envy

From a young age, I remember learning that I should not feel envious. My Catholic upbringing filled me with deep fear of purgatory and the promise of hell for being so sinful as to feel envious. My parents instilled in me that I was a terrible child for being jealous and that I should never speak of it, think it, or feel it. Mindfulness tells me that it’s a feeling I should notice, accept its presence, and move on to focusing on what I do have, rather than what I don’t. One of my favorite podcasts, “This Jungian Life,” on the other hand, suggests that the feeling of envy serves as a map to informing us, what it is that we really want from life. So, what the heck is a gal supposed to think or do when that little green monster comes up?

Let me start by saying that I have never once resented anyone else’s happiness or success. In fact, I am very much a cheerleader for the people I care about and love. I will forever celebrate my friends’ successes, and will most certainly do whatever I can to help other reach their own success.

If I’m hanging out with you, and you’re not doing things for your life, we need to have a talk!

Now, the not so comfortable part about this post is that I have certainly felt pangs of envy many many many times in my life – when most of my gals were moving forward in their romantic relationships, traveling with their partners, getting promoted at work, getting engaged, getting married, announcing their first, second and third pregnancies, sharing their beautiful new homes and family portraits. What was I doing to reach those kind of milestones?

I constantly felt like I was behind. Inadequate. The runt of the litter, so to speak.

Worse then that, my experience was an obsessive reflection of my inadequacies and shortcomings, an in-depth analysis (think Barbara Walters asking the real questions on 20/20, except she’s a CIA agent trained to crack open Russian spies). Also, to add to the pleasantries, these investigations would usually happen in my brain at the witching hour of three or four in the morning. I would spend my nights evaluating and obsessing all the areas of my life where I went wrong, things I should have done differently, and trying to assess all the possible outcomes that could have happened, if only my “dumb, stubborn and lazy” self did something differently. I guess I was also a psychic that could predict the future of taking a different path.

My envy didn’t stop at “Welp, I want that too!”

My envy made me feel small and inadequate in every single aspect of my life. I’d stay up night after night, wondering, “what is so wrong that I can’t seem to get to this place that others arrived at so effortlessly!?” The worst part is that it didn’t stop at my insomnia. I felt so inadequate and insecure around my friends, that I actually started to believe my other favorite track that plays in my head called “Why Would Anyone Want you Around? You’re Such a Loser.” I used other people’s milestones, to evaluate and determine what my own worth and value to their life was. Makes a whole lot of sense, right?

Now that I’m not in that space anymore, I wish I could go back to my younger self and have my older wiser self talk some sense into her. (Mind you, my older and wiser self is still very young and spry!)

I had a moment of clarity that hit me one night when I was on my roof having some wine. I had sent a photo of the skyline to a girlfriend. “Loving the sparkle of the city!” was my caption. I was on my second glass of Rosé, it was the perfect summer night, I had just listened to some music I thoroughly enjoyed, and I was just sitting outside, taking in the sights and sounds of the city.

“I’m so jealous! I wish I was doing that instead!” paired with a photo of what looked like a tornado had gone through her home, complete with grinning toddlers. She probably could have used a glass (or a bottle??) of wine herself!

That text actually interrupted my thoughts about how incredible it was to be living here. Something I often have to intentionally remind myself to appreciate. I had gotten better at taking in the splendor and sparkle of the city nights. Often, I would catch myself thinking how I actually made my childhood dream into a reality.

The wine mixed with that serendipitous text, met with my overwhelming sense of pride and gratitude for that night, was probably one of the first times I actually stopped to think that we all look at our lives, and others lives, through a different lens.

I certainly pay close attention to the deficiencies of my life, and look at the big picture and the accomplishments and successes of others. I remember thinking that day, how silly it is that I spend so much of my life, using other people’s timelines, to measure my own success. What if, I just compared were I am, to where I was? What if I just focused on where I was now and only compared it to where I wanted to be. I really should try to take other people out of the equation when I am evaluating MY life’s success? What a thought!

“Alright, these are all excellent and wonderful ideas, but that’s enough thinking and gratitude for tonight. I wouldn’t want to overdose on it. And while we’re at it, also probably enough wine too.”

As I often do to escape the world, I opened my Instagram and came across a page filled with picnics in the park, smiling friends, wine glasses, a concert, a sailboat, dinner, and photos of an art exhibit. I caught myself thinking, “Wow! I wish this was my life! She’s doing so many amazing things!” (You see, perfect example of how my 23 second-long I-think-I’m-getting-it Buddhist moments are interrupted by my definitely-never-going-to-be-a-Buddhist thinking). I took a closer look at those pictures and thought “Wait, I did some of those things!!!”

I started to giggle and shook my head at the silliness of the situation.

For that brief moment, I was jealous of my own life!