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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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Painful confession: I’m envious of those who have the things I want

By David McElroy · June 15, 2018

I never thought envy was a problem for me. I really didn’t.

When I discovered the Enneagram personality typing system a few years ago, it was scary how correct most of it was — both the flattering parts and the ugly parts. But descriptions I read said the “deadly sin” or passion of the Type 4 was envy.

“That couldn’t be me,” I thought, “because I don’t feel jealous of other people. I don’t wish bad things on those who have more than I do. I’m happy for those who do well.”

I didn’t give it much thought, because I was so certain it didn’t apply to me. But I’ve recently had to rethink that. It’s been painful. I’ve had to accept that what Shakespeare called “the green sickness” is hiding in my heart and eating at me.

It was hard to admit this to myself. I’m humiliated to admit it to you.

I was listening to an episode of the Typeolgy podcast which used a panel of people who identify as Type 4 when my delusion was shattered. Envy came up among the guests and all admitted it was an issue for them. Show host Ian Cron — who is a Type 4 himself — explained what envy really means in this context.

“Fours envy the normalcy, the happiness, and the apparent ease with which other people seem to move in the world,” Cron wrote in his discussion of the episode. “We just look at other people and think they just haven’t suffered as much as we have. We just have this perception that other people have had an easier time of it in this life.”

Cron pointed out that envy wasn’t necessarily the desire to tear others down. It could also be the simple feeling that we deserve what others have — that there’s something terribly missing in us — something which others seem to have.

And with that, I could no longer deny the green-eyed monster of envy that lived inside me. In one way, it felt like a relief to finally have such a painful insight. In another way, it was a humiliation, because it felt like one more horrible piece of overinflated ego or false self which needed to be resolved in my life.

Over the past few months, I’ve become painfully aware of my feelings of envy about specific people. It hasn’t gone so far for me that I wish bad things on those people. I’m just painfully aware of those who have what I want — and it hurts me to realize they have what I want so badly.

— I feel envy for men who are happily married to the sorts of women who I admire. I don’t want any random woman who might fall for me. No, I want a woman who is beautiful and brilliant and talented and amazing. I want to be admired and adored by a woman who I admire and adore. There aren’t many of them who I’ve known, but when I know of a man happily married to a woman I see in this way, I am full of envy. I don’t want his wife. I simply rage against the fates or my own decisions or someone else’s decision — whatever it is that keeps me from having what I see as my ideal.

— I have friends who are filmmakers and I’ve realized that I’m incredibly envious of their success. I don’t want to take away their success. I don’t want to sabotage them and I don’t wish they would fail. But I’m very envious that they’re doing what I wish I was doing. I have a friend right now who is in the middle of shooting his latest feature. (It’s about his fourth feature film and each has been better than the previous. He’s doing really good work.) As he posts updates on Facebook and Instagram about production, I’m happy for him — but I’m also incredibly envious. It upsets me that he’s able to do something I’m not yet doing.

— I’m envious of people who come from emotionally healthy families. They have love and support from parents and extended families. Their relationships are healthy and they have wonderful memories of childhood. I don’t wish they had experiences such as mine. I don’t wish they felt as though they had no families. But I’m really envious that they have the love and family happiness that has eluded me.

I hate admitting these things. This isn’t someone I want to be. When I realize I feel this way, I know I’m feeling sorry for myself instead of fixing the things that are wrong. I’m seeing myself as fatally flawed in some basic way — and that’s not a path toward becoming the healthier version of myself which I’ve been struggling to become.

I know that becoming more honest with myself — and admitting the truth to you — is another step on the long road to becoming the best version of me that I can be. It’s not a pleasant part of the journey, but I have to get through the self-denial to get to the self-improvement I need.

I’ve had to shatter a lot of my illusions about myself over the last decade or so. I’ve had to humble myself, but I’ve come to realize that admitting these issues and working to fix them makes me a far stronger person than someone who’s still in denial — as I was for so long.

Maybe that just my way of trying to tell myself I’m not so bad after all. It’s hard to say.

Note: If you really want to really understand the Enneagram Type 4 — including me — listen to the podcast episode (and the second part of it) which I linked above.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: enneagram, envy, Ian cron, type 4, typology

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

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Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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