Why am I shocked that a friend’s happy news makes me feel envy?

By David McElroy · October 13, 2017

“Have you seen Julie?” Matt asked me. “She’s pregnant and she’s sitting back there.”

Julie is a casual friend who got married last year. I don’t know her that well and I rarely see her. I had just walked into a restaurant for dinner Friday evening and an employee told me the news.

My first reaction was to express happiness for Julie and her husband, but I suddenly realized I felt something unexpected. My inner emotional mask slipped slightly and I felt … what was this?

Envy.

Instead of pure happiness for Julie — who will be a great mother, by the way — I felt something ugly in my gut. My heart felt cold and hard. There was a powerful hint of anger — self-directed? — and then I realized it was hard to put labels on the things I was feeling.

Nothing I experienced was about Julie. It was all about me. And I hated the way I felt.

When I first encountered the Enneagram personality-typing system, I quickly identified myself as a Type 4. In so many ways — both the good ways and the bad ways — I saw parts of myself in the Type 4 patterns. (My “wings” are balanced between 3 and 5.) But I never could quite identify with the vice that’s said to be the core flaw of the type: Envy.

I intellectualize my envy. I’ve always told myself it’s not really envy. It’s just a realization that I wish I could do better for myself in some ways. It’s a desire for self-improvement. I don’t wish bad things on anyone. I don’t wish I were them. I don’t want to take good things from them.

But as I politely exchanged pleasantries a few minutes ago with Julie and her husband, there was nothing detached or intellectual about the feeling. It was burning envy. It was an angry and irrational frustration that someone else had what I so desperately want.

I try to be honest with myself about my many flaws, but I’m just as prone to self-deception as everyone else is. (You, too. Yes. You.) In fact, I know — at least in theory — that there’s no one in the world who I can deceive as easily as I can deceive myself.

In the middle of the burning envy that I feel right now, I realize I can’t lie to myself. This is envy. This is anger. This is a raging frustration that I don’t have the things I need and want the most. I don’t want other people to be unhappy or to not have the things they need. But there is an ugly part of me hidden inside that whispers, “Why does he have something I desperately want — when he doesn’t even deserve what he has?”

Caught in the grips of this envy, it’s easy for me to think there must be something unfair about other people having what I want, especially when so many of those people don’t seem any more “deserving” than I do. Why does he have the financial success that I used to want so much? Why don’t I have it? Why does he have a loving wife and adoring children? He doesn’t even appreciate her. Why don’t I have that adoring family? The ugly questions go on and they mock me.

The rational side of my brain has answers to all the questions. I know why I’ve made the decisions I’ve made. I regret some of them. I don’t regret others. But I understand why I made every decision I’ve made. I know the factors which created me in the past. And I know I’m responsible for what I currently have — and for what I don’t have.

I know that. I accept that. But as the envy and anger rise within me in a moment such as this, none of that cool intellectual certainty matters. I feel like a child who has been denied the love and care and attention which he needs.

Just barely underneath the calm and composed exterior — the one that allows me to gracefully congratulate Julie and her husband about their wonderful news — there is rage and boiling envy.

“I deserve better!” this envious and childish self screams in foolish self-righteousness.

I know why I’m where I am.

I know why I’m alone.

I know the decisions that have led me here. I really do.

But that doesn’t stop me from feeling pain and anger. It doesn’t stop me from resenting other people who have what I want — even if I normally lie to myself and say that what I feel isn’t resentment at all.

I’m glad I was able to say the right things to Julie and her husband. I’m glad that neither my words nor my face gave me away. I’m happy that I know how to be such a liar in a socially acceptable way.

It’s not appropriate for me to feel this way — not socially and not psychologically. It’s not healthy. I know that. But there are times when the mask slips enough that I have to see the ugly parts of myself that I prefer to hide from.

I know from studying the Enneagram why I feel the ways that I do. I know that it has to do with fears of being abandoned. I know it has to do with fears of not being good enough. I know that it comes from the deep dread of being flawed and incapable of being what everyone else can be. I know all that.

But that intellectual knowledge doesn’t help. For the moment, I’m just a scared and abandoned child who is terrified and in desperate need. I don’t look that way. I look like a well-dressed businessman sitting in a restaurant in dress clothes and a nice tie.

But there is a tremendous gap between the calm exterior and the raging envy which is screaming in my heart tonight. I don’t like it, but sometimes the truth is too obvious to deny, even to myself.

Share on Social Networks

The company that owns Facebook and Instagram is heavily promoting its new AI-based software assistant called Muse, but people who are using it as it was designed are incredibly foolish. An early adopter of the software discovered that a few days ago when he advertised an item for sale on Facebook Marketplace — and he inadvertently gave Muse full authority to act on his behalf. The software agreed to a lowball offer made by another Facebook user and then gave that man the home address of the man for whom he was an agent. The software told the buyer that the seller was home and waiting for him. When the buyer showed up and waited angrily, the would-be buyer left an angry review for the man. And this angry man had the seller’s home address. It was only well after that that the software reported what it had done and admitted it had made a mistake. I won’t be putting that much power into the hands of any software. I think anyone who agrees to such terms is a fool. And the software’s user agreement says you’re responsible for purchases the software makes in your name. Nope.

Meet my new girlfriend. Her name is Meg. And she’s my little sweetheart. A couple of months ago, a neighbor across the street told me about a new stray in the neighborhood that she and I were both soon feeding. The cat had been very skittish about contact and she had a lot of scabs and parasites in her fur, but a trip to the vet last week revealed that she was otherwise in good health. The vet estimates her to be 1 to 2 years old. I named her for Meg Murry, the 13-year-old protagonist of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful book, “A Wrinkle in Time.” (Please read the book. Don’t watch the horrible movie.) Since we lost Lucy almost a year ago, it seems appropriate that we finally have a new little girl to join the household. She’s already captured my heart, but Alex, Oliver and Sam aren’t there quite yet.

There’s nothing socially acceptable that’s as dangerous as drinking alcohol. Most people grow up being told to “drink responsibly” — and all of us see people abusing this drug in one way or another — but the truth is that drinking alcohol is always a terrible risk. The alcohol in these drinks is toxic and the human liver has to work hard to filter the toxins out. What most people don’t realize is that alcohol is classified as a known carcinogen by the World Health Organization — because of the well-established connection between imbibing and various cancers. Many people have taken refuge behind the idea that light or moderate drinking might be safe, but a new study shows that drinking even one drink a day increases the risks of 10 types of cancer. When I was a teen-ager, I looked around and saw the negative effects that this behavior had on a lot of people and decided not to start drinking, so I’ve never even tried this poison. The evidence keeps piling up that I was lucky to have come to that conclusion early.

It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

Related Posts