TOW: Wanting What Other People Have

"Envy is pain at the good fortune of others." -Aristotle

I have been going through a fairly interesting thought process as my career and life in the big city evolves and changes.  With my big 3-0 birthday coming up, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about what I want, and what I don't want.  Somewhere along the line, I feel like I have been slightly caught up in wanting what other people have.  And perhaps this needs some clarification.

Sometimes I think we all feel envy, we all look at other people and say, "I want that thing that that person has," but more often than not the trap that really gets most people, and perhaps myself as well, is the idea that we want a phase of life that other people have. It's rare for us to say that we want a blender that someone else has, a car, or even house.  We would rarely act badly for things but many of us would commit rash actions for ideas, for the symbol of what a blender represents to us, what a fast car, an expensive house represents to us.  Security, wealth, status, respect, sex appeal.  These are the things that cause envy.  These are the things people will do irrational things for.

In my mind, I feel like I have been leaning in a direction.  I have been thinking very hard about the things that other people have.  It has taken a while, but I am starting to live, I suppose, a normal middle class life.  I have an apartment, I have friends, I am growing in status professionally and I am acquiring skills that will raise my overall salary, etc.  Today I think I thought about getting a dog....not because I like dogs, but because I like the idea of walking a dog, out and about.  Why would I want something like that?  Who knows, probably because I didn't have it, but someone else did.  (*I can't say that I love dogs...too many bad dogs in my lifetime.)

To me this says a lot of the nature of envy.  It's not about us wanting something, it's about us not wanting someone else to be happier than we are.

When I think about this, it's sad that I know a part of me feels this ways, even as I do my best to love what I have, and who I am.  There are times that I cannot help but feel envy.  Once and a while, I think it overtakes even the most saintly of us.   But again, it's what we do in those moments, not that we feel it.

I suppose what I have always felt is that I have never wanted what 'other people have' in a societal way.  I don't want status in the way other people have it, I don't want a white-picket fence life with 2.1 kids and a mortgage and one divorce one successful marriage and whatever else Stats Canada tells me is the norm these days.  I don't want to be or meet a standard.  That's not going to be enough for me, though I can see how it is enough for other people.

What I really want is something that is uniquely mine.  Something that is my experience, that I am proud of, that I can call my happiness, my goodness and my strength.

When we were younger, strength and goodness were given to us.  As adults, we must create it from within, to share with a world that is not always polite, kind or fair.

That injustice can sometimes create the conditions for envy.

What I really want is a world free of evil emotions, of an inner peace that I think most people search for.  And sometimes they can't help but see it in the eyes of other people, even if it's just an image.

It's that idea that beguiles us, every day.