WHEN JEALOUSY & ENVY SPEAK
It’s rare in Texas to wake up to snow on Christmas day. There was only a light coating, but it was enough to make the day very special. Inside our drafty house it was frigid. My mother was lighting the gas heater and preparing to make a pot of coffee and I climbed out of bed bringing my blanket with me. She wanted me to wait for her before I opened my gifts. I sat down on the cold wooden floor with my blanket and pulled the largest box from under the tree. I already knew what was in it because the day before I tore away some of the wrapping paper and peeked at it. Mother finally came into the living room with her coffee and sat down to watch me open it. Last year she promised that Santa would bring it this time. It was beautiful, my new pink and shiny Deluxe Bake It Oven. A child size toy oven made of fairly durable hard plastic and light weight enough for a child to carry it from room to room. It used a one hundred watt light bulb as a heating element because it was designed to bake mini cakes, in a mini baking pan. Additional mini baking pans and cooking utensils were included.
My best friend Sharon lived across the street. Her mother and mine were also best friends since high school. Sharon and I were nearly inseparable. We spent most of our time playing together either at her house or mine. Her two brothers who were not much older nicknamed her “Shoe Sharon”. Having something to do with her habit of wearing her shoes on the wrong foot most of the time and they teased her frequently about it. I called her that once but never did it again because mother explained to me that it was mean. We both asked Santa for the oven for Christmas and both received it. Except Sharon’s oven wasn’t the same model. The difference in the two ovens was noticeable and she noticed it right away. We played together with our ovens for nearly a week. Until the day we became angry with each other.
She didn’t realize that the deluxe oven came with additional baking utensils until she saw me with them that day. Not only was the deluxe model bigger and more decorative, it had extras that came with it. That day Sharon wasn’t herself we were playing together and suddenly she screamed at me “your oven is stupid and ugly and you’re ugly too, go home!” She kicked the oven across the room and the mini cake pans and utensils were scattered. I wasn’t letting her have the last word so I told her how stupid she was because she didn’t know how to put her shoes on. And of course I used the nickname. I said it, “you’re ugly and stupid Shoe Sharon”. She was hurt and she cried. I felt sorry about it but didn’t know how to say it. I was crying and she was still crying when I left to go home.
The grown-ups knew we would work it out and we did about three days later. Mother scolded me about using the nickname. And then tried to explain jealousy and envy in a way that a child could understand. Something about how sometimes people want things that other people have and when they don’t, it makes them feel bad about what they have.
In adult life I find that it isn’t that simple. I have come to understand that like fear, jealousy and envy can and will use our mind against you. Causing a kind of cunning, shifty and underhanded behavior. At times it appears as though it is an entity of its own, but jealousy and envy has no mind of its own. It uses ours and if we allow it we will find ourselves playing a malicious role.
My life experiences have taught me that when envy and jealousy speak, it suggests that “me and you” in some way are not deserving of what we have and that it is unfair that we have it. Whether it’s financial or social status, relationships, education or profession, the list is endless. Even if it’s something as simple as “we” buy a new car because the one we drive is falling apart.
When jealousy and envy speak it implies that someone called “I” is more deserving of what we have, and that they are justified in feeling that way. In some cases “I” will try to take what we have or actually succeed in doing so. Envy and jealousy speaks a universal language and its implication always translates the same.
There is a counterpart to envy and jealousy, which is akin to righteous indignation. It has a strong voice as well. When it speaks it proposes that someone called “I” has no right to judge “you and me” concerning what “we” are and are not deserving of. The overtone here is that we have earned what we have through some sacrifice and hard work. Hinting that “I” has not done so. Indignation in this case might be absurd if that is not the fact.
Decades have past since I played with Sharon and the Bake It Oven. But with it has come experience and knowledge. Enough to know that jealousy and envy like all emotions are mental and emotional tools. Given to humankind to assist us in “self-reflection and self-evaluation”. Asking us to consider that these two emotions can guide us in our social relationships and act as counsel during the social burdens and status pressures that we encounter. As adults using these emotions for the true intention of improving our own conduct and not that of others will help us function with less childlike behavior.
These two teachers are challenging us to mature, evolve and rise above the inconsequential. So that we can find our way to the threshold of authentic conscious living and cross into it as a new kind of ascended human being.