Why Do We Choose Envy Over Gratitude?

I once had a conversation with someone who, in so many of his own words, relayed to me that he was resentful of the world. 

The “world”, broadly speaking, may just refer to the society you live in, or whatever you can see of the world from your perspective. Americans can be very America-centric and Americans spend much less time thinking about the rest of the world than the rest of the world thinks about America. 

Perhaps this trend will reverse course at some point, but I don't know if it is going anywhere anytime soon (if you haven't traveled outside the US, try to do so — I say this with the knowledge that there may be a million good reasons why you can’t).

Well, a few things about the friend expressing resentment - what he was talking about, broadly speaking, were rules. You see, his mind was very much oriented like an engineer. On the personality level, he would rank rather low on the “openness to new experiences” spectrum. He likes order, organization, predictability, and security. He would not rank or self-identify as someone who was “adventurous”. 

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This friend of mine is not overtly political nor politically informed. He tends to lean more towards conservatism, as you might have guessed. Our political leanings are determined much more by our personality types than our own interpretation of morals. Anyway, he has always lived by a kind of “pay your taxes and play by the rules” type of mentality (I know— that was a democrat speaking!). His resentment, in the context of the conversation we were having, was about, more or less, people who don't pay their taxes, people who practically live their lives off welfare and food stamps, and about how he had done all the right things, and people like him were subsidizing people like them. That is, the poor, the ill-prepared, the irresponsible.

Politics aside for a moment, let's look at this from a more general perspective as I share with you my first epiphany from this conversation- I think it is rather safe to say that not only was he resentful, he was verging on bitterness not just in this conversation, but elsewhere in his life. Clearly, he had not only registered the unfairness of living in the world, but it had registered deeply, cementing this unfairness as a kind of internalized worldview. And while my friend's resentment was clearly rooted in economics and broad societal safety nets like welfare, unemployment, and food stamps, his ire also seemed to be directed toward me. Why?

While I have never been on welfare, I have had bouts of unemployment. And I also break plenty of the rules. I dropped out of high school when I was 16, and when one does that, they are supposed to fail. They are supposed to end up in a cycle of shitty paying fast-food jobs, alcoholism, substance abuse, and a life-long struggle with their finances. At least, that is the fear we usually tell ourselves. That is the fear that keeps society in line. 

Now, I can say I have experienced all of those fears in my real life. I have had dozens of shit jobs. I have been addicted to hard drugs. I have had many bouts with alcoholism, and I have struggled financially so hard and for so long throughout my twenties and early thirties that I didn't even realize it and at some point just figured that was the way things would always be. I didn't follow the rules and that was because I had become an artist. Or was it the other way around?

I left home when I was young, and with my parent's blessing, I moved to the big city to start a lifelong commitment to the pursuit of making work as a painter and as a writer. Anyway, to my friend, I had broken the rules that he didn’t even know you could break. But my life turned out just fine. In fact, it is better than fine. I still rarely sell a painting and very few people read what I write. But, these experiences, these struggles, are part of who I am and frankly, they have made my life quite eventful, quite interesting, and quite rich with experience. 

 You could feel that to him, even the things he worked so hard for, had worked so long for, and spent so much money for weren't all that interesting or gratifying. That friend was making over six figures a year, owning more than one house and the model of his car is a mixture of numbers and letters.  He could talk about his car and his house, but when standing next to me, the stinky broke artist that I was, he did not feel all that interesting. He had no real stories of his own.

Although the seats of his car could warm your bum with the press of a button, I could tell you how I overcame my addiction to crack cocaine, or how many years ago I lived in my car in Los Angeles — cold and lonely and destitute. If one can at least see their lives as an adventure, there is no getting stuck, and there is little room for resentment. I know the adventure is not always fair, but that is how adventures work. 

What it seems to me is that one of the quickest and most common ways to drive yourself crazy is to look at the world strictly through the lens of who has what and why. Meaning - in terms of “deservedness”. Viewing the world through this perspective will often leave you focusing on what you do not have, rather than all the things you do. 

It's envy over gratitude and it ain’t good. I often wonder why so many writers and artists can do so well when I continue to struggle. I wonder why someone sells their paintings often and gets big time publishing deals. You see if you begin to tally up who has what and why you'll begin to realize, it doesn't make sense. It isn't fair. And you may start to obsess over it to the point of insanity. No, the world frequently does not care about your sense of fairness, and many times the world forgets to consult you on what is right and what is wrong.

Yes, we ought to try for fairness, try for honesty, and aim for a world that looks, feels, and IS as fair and just as we can make it. We want to reward good behavior and punish bad behavior. But the burden is too great. There are just too many damn people, and too many damn axes to consider. This is why we prepare children and even remind ourselves from time to time, that the world is just not all that fair. 

When they say "comparison is the thief of all joy”, they sure aren't kidding. It is. Look outside — this is as good as it gets as fair is concerned. But the adventure is still yours and looking up at the sky and smiling is still one hell of a weapon.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

JSV
2024