Most would agree that envy is a disagreeable, if not self-destructive emotional reaction. Even the Bible admonishes one against being covetous, which is a first cousin to envy. If I recall correctly, it was actually God speaking to Moses when he gave him the ten commandments-- in fact, now that I think of it, it was one of the commandments.
I think it's interesting that God never explains why you shouldn't covet your neighbor's stuff, He just says: "Don't."
Perhaps it has something to do with the nature of reality and why we're here. If my prior post is even remotely near the truth, that reality is this movie we're here to view on the screen of our senses, then it would appear we do ourselves a disservice when we focus on what someone else has rather than on our own story.
Maybe the reason why we're not supposed to be covetous is because we came here for the purpose of witnessing the dramatic unfolding of our own existence. What's going on with our neighbor is his own business, his own story. If there's any reason or meaning in our existence, we won't find it while we're looking over the fence at our neighbor's new car, boat, wife, fill-in-the-blank.
Maybe we're just supposed to pay attention to our lives Right Now.
In the movie-that-is-life, we are both Actor and Observer. The Observer knows that the drama has been pre-engineered, that the end already exists in the last few frames of film. The Actor exists in the Now moment and faces a bewildering array of choices: should he wear sneakers or shoes, eat bananas or toast, take the new job offer, divorce his unfaithful wife? Drama exists when an individual playing a role must act fatefully, i.e., he must of free-will choose the path that fate has placed before him, and in so doing, pay the consequences for all his choices and actions.
If the actor on-screen began to mumble about other actors playing other roles, it would be quite dissatisfying for the movie-goers, the Observer.
If, while in character in the middle of "Top Gun", Tom Cruise began to talk about Dustin Hoffman's or Jack Nicholson's acting career, it would be bizarre in the extreme. As Observers, we need Actors to stay in their respective roles during the course of the particular drama.
Since we are all Actors and Observers, would we not be better served to love our respective fates? This does not mean that we adopt a fatalist stance toward life and accept evil-- otherwise, there'd be no drama. If we are sick, we ought fight for health. If poor, we should fight to better our circumstances. What I mean is that we should accept that we are currently in the role of a sick person fighting for health, or a poor person fighting for wealth.
By envying someone else who looks like he has it better than us, we are refusing to accept the role fate has assigned us. The impassive Observer in the back of our consciousness, the One who can look on equally undisturbed when our lives cave in around us or we are catapulted to the heights of our ambitions, this being is the one who observes the actions of a free-will moving down the path of fate, who knows that the end is pre-determined by initial conditions. (Even if the Actor would hotly contest this circumscription of his possibilities.)
Someone once said that true wisdom is loving one's fate. Happiness is not getting what you like, or even liking what you get. I think it has more to do with being at peace with what happens, even as you may try to effect the outcome. Maybe by understanding that all that is in the Now is the result of all that has gone before we have a better... I don't know.... gesture to make before our time on the stage is over.
More on this later.
