On my morning walks I often see Nellie, who hops across her lawn toward me. Tail wagging, Nellie seems to smile when I pet her furry head.
Nellie has only three legs, but doesn’t appear upset by the loss. I’m guessing she doesn’t compare herself with neighborhood dogs who run faster.
Comparing ourselves with others can bring great suffering. Imagine a young couple, newly married, who are renting a cozy apartment and saving money to buy a house.
Then they’re invited to dinner at the boss’s house, which is a sprawling home on five acres. Suddenly, a seed of discontent is planted and their apartment seems cramped and crowded.
The seed of envy sprouts and begins taking over their lives. He grows envious of friends with late-model cars and she suddenly thinks her wardrobe is shabby. Their unhappiness infects their marriage, as they start bickering about money and bills and what they don’t have.
The scenario echoes the story of Adam and Eve, who at first were content with life in Eden — and who wouldn’t be? They walked through lovely gardens surrounded by every manner of bird and beast. They could do whatever they wanted, except for avoiding that famous forbidden fruit.
And along comes the devil to tell them God had lied to them — and if they ate that particular fruit, they could be like gods!
We all know what happened next. They were dismissed from the garden with Adam cursed to work by the sweat of his brow and Eve saddled with pain in childbirth. The glory days were over, and things went downhill from there.
The envy monster is still active in the world today. A child gets a toy truck for his birthday and is delighted, until he notices his friend’s truck is bigger. A woman gets a substantial raise at work and celebrates happily, until she discovers a colleague who got more.
My late husband and I had a sweet little vacation home in the Florida marshes with a lovely view of the water. One day I realized that since we didn’t own the lot in front of our home, someone eventually would build there and block the view. That thought was the envy monster’s way of stealing my joy.
Some people expect life to be perfect. They want a school where no child ever calls others names. They seek a job where they will have the exact benefits and responsibilities they crave.
In a story by Nathaniel Hawthorne called “The Birthmark,” a scientist marries a woman who is beautiful except for one thing, a strawberry-colored birthmark on her cheek.
Soon he thinks she’d be more gorgeous without that flaw. “Nature made you so perfectly that this small defect shocks me as being a sign of earthly imperfection,” he said.
She is hurt, but will do anything to please him. He concocts a mixture in his lab that does indeed lighten the mark on her face, but she dies as a result.
In our fallen world, we can banish the envy monster by refusing to compare ourselves with others. And we might take a lesson from Nellie the dog and enjoy our life, despite what’s missing.
Lorraine’s email address is lorrainevmurray@yahoo.com.
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