Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Illusionary Envy
I know a few of my readers disagree with me on this, but I still think its a fair point. This is a realisation that I had recently, I'm still working through the implications of it. Here's how the logic goes.
We are all envious people.
By this I mean that there are things that every person envy's. That they see others doing well and wish they could do as well. I'm not necessarily talking about a jealous (sinful) envy, but just a broader envy. I look at Steve and his amazing talents with green stuff and I wish I have even a tenth of his skill. I look at Bri's constant cheerfulness, at my friends happy relationships, at many many things that people I know do so well... and I wish I could be like them. Everyone does it.
The things we envy people for are not always the whole story.
“Everybody Lies”. I don't mean this at all in a bad way. But if you are going through a tough time, you don't want to tell the world about it. If you are finding things tough, very few people will know about it. There are extreme cases where this is not the case, but this is the way our society operates. But that's an entire separate post. Suffice to say, people are very uncomfortable letting you see their weaknesses. Consequently, what we see in others is the extreme. The extreme best they can do. Let me take Steve's sculpting as an example. If Steve makes a horrible failure of a sculpture (Which I am sure doesn't happen often these days), then he doesn't show it to us. We don't see the hours he spends in the quiet of his own home reworking things he isn't happy with. What we see is him going away and returning with an amazing masterpiece almost effortlessly. Not only that, he has fun doing it. So we envy him for this talent. We wish we could do what he does so simply and easily. The same is true for many of the other things we envy others for.
So what's the implication of this. Well I had a few thoughts that came out of it for me... but feel free to make your own applications.
I need to be less concerned with how well everyone else does things. Particularly with how confident and sure they seem to be while doing them. I'm not trying to marginalise the great things people do do here, I'm not looking for an excuse to stop developing myself. I just need to focus on me when developing me, not on others. Its a case of being the best I can be, not being better than someone else. That path does lead to jealousy.
I need to be aware that there are probably thing I do that others are envious of. I must admit a bit of curiosity as to what these things are. (If your comfortable, feel free to sound off in the comments or email me about this. I'd like to know ) There's not much I can do about it. But it would probably help to be aware of it at least. And maybe this means I should be presenting my self a little more honestly in these areas.
We are all envious people.
By this I mean that there are things that every person envy's. That they see others doing well and wish they could do as well. I'm not necessarily talking about a jealous (sinful) envy, but just a broader envy. I look at Steve and his amazing talents with green stuff and I wish I have even a tenth of his skill. I look at Bri's constant cheerfulness, at my friends happy relationships, at many many things that people I know do so well... and I wish I could be like them. Everyone does it.
The things we envy people for are not always the whole story.
“Everybody Lies”. I don't mean this at all in a bad way. But if you are going through a tough time, you don't want to tell the world about it. If you are finding things tough, very few people will know about it. There are extreme cases where this is not the case, but this is the way our society operates. But that's an entire separate post. Suffice to say, people are very uncomfortable letting you see their weaknesses. Consequently, what we see in others is the extreme. The extreme best they can do. Let me take Steve's sculpting as an example. If Steve makes a horrible failure of a sculpture (Which I am sure doesn't happen often these days), then he doesn't show it to us. We don't see the hours he spends in the quiet of his own home reworking things he isn't happy with. What we see is him going away and returning with an amazing masterpiece almost effortlessly. Not only that, he has fun doing it. So we envy him for this talent. We wish we could do what he does so simply and easily. The same is true for many of the other things we envy others for.
So what's the implication of this. Well I had a few thoughts that came out of it for me... but feel free to make your own applications.
I need to be less concerned with how well everyone else does things. Particularly with how confident and sure they seem to be while doing them. I'm not trying to marginalise the great things people do do here, I'm not looking for an excuse to stop developing myself. I just need to focus on me when developing me, not on others. Its a case of being the best I can be, not being better than someone else. That path does lead to jealousy.
I need to be aware that there are probably thing I do that others are envious of. I must admit a bit of curiosity as to what these things are. (If your comfortable, feel free to sound off in the comments or email me about this. I'd like to know ) There's not much I can do about it. But it would probably help to be aware of it at least. And maybe this means I should be presenting my self a little more honestly in these areas.
