JEALOUSY + Shoulder update
Jealousy and envy are negative feelings I've written about before. Marilyn Vos Savant has again written a perceptive column on the subject. She points out that jealousy is often the beginning of hatred and evil. In this time of world conflict, we need to think about jealousy and the malicious use of jealousy to motivate evil acts.
But I've been thinking lately about the difference between jealousy and envy. Are they the same thing or is there a subtle difference between the two? My dictionary tells me that jealousy is resentment of another's success while envy includes the desire for the fruits of another's success. I read in Esquire magazine that envy includes not just the desire for, but the desire to take away, the fruits of another's success. That is, envy wants to deprive the successful of their rewards. In all events, these negative emotions seem to lead to a desire to tear other people down, a desire that other people not succeed. Understand that the flip side of these emotions, a desire to compete and gain the fruits of success for oneself, is not only legitimate but necessary for all of us to improve our situation. A desire to make things better for ourselves is healthy and making things better for ourselves is often a prerequisite to making things better for others. I urge people to try to better their situation but I abhor the notion that taking things from other people, trying to deny others the fruits of their own efforts, will improve anything. At best, the leveling instinct of jealousy and envy creates unfairness and at worst takes away all desire to succeed. Jealousy and envy make things worse for everyone.
These emotions are mean-spirited, unkind, even hateful. More importantly, they are wrongly based on the idea that one person's success means that another person must fail. In fact, one of the beauties of life is that your success doesn't require someone else to fail, everyone can succeed. If we can at least understand this, perhaps we can avoid jealousy and envy. If we can avoid these emotions and focus on our own goals, we can all succeed. In that way, we will all be better off.
Finally, let's remember that success is not necessarily material success and that even to the extent it is we don't all have to have the same degree of material success to be happy and prosperous. We can be happy with less than others or with more than others. The main thing is to be happy.
If we can apply kindness and the love of our fellow human beings to our views of other people, we will be even better. The happiness that comes from helping others can be ours. Then jealousy won't even be a possibility.
[I started physical therapy this week and was pleased with how I felt afterwards. I have three simple exercises to do four times a day and I've already gained a little more flexibility and range of motion. I'm still a little nervous about driving but I have another appointment with the surgeon this week and I'll learn about remaining dangers. People have continued to be supportive and I value that. I'm starting to plan a vacation for the summer and I'm looking forward to a trip. On balance, things are not so bad.]
3-4-02
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