Envy

Envy is one of the most fashionable vices that exists nowadays and I suspect it has always been fashionable. As the movie Life of Brian once illustrated, even people in the midst of misery can't resist the temptation to envy other people.

Moreover, in an age when so many are suffering the effects of a bad economy and worse economists, it can be very hard to resist the siren call of such a vice. It is even harder to preach against such a vice since it may be argued that the right to envy those who have more is one of the few consolations that the poor can count on in this day and age.

But who are the poor?

Those who have little?

Or those who just envy those who have more?

And who are the rich?

The rich folk on the hill?

Or the not-so-rich folk who live down the block or across the street?

And what does it mean to "have more"? And how can you be that sure that the folk who have more are necessarily that rich just because they seem to have more than you?

After all, a neighbor of mine who lives on a fixed income is considered "rich" by many of her friends and neighbors because she owns her own property and has a steady supply of money due to a monthly disability allowance that she doesn't have to work for.

But just because she is richer than some of her neighbors does not mean she is richer than all of them. Nor do it mean that she is totally exempt from money troubles. After all, a fixed income is still a fixed income, no matter how large it may seem to those who don't have one. And unless you are around her 24/7, you have no idea what expenses she has or how much trouble she has paying them. Indeed, by the standards of many rich people I know, she might actually seem poor.

So what about the neighbor who owns his own car? Surely he is rich, right?

Well, he probably is not that rich or else he would not be living in a neighborhood with so many poor people in it. And even if you assume differently, you have no way of knowing for sure how hard he had to work to get that car unless he tells you. He might have had to work two jobs. Or maybe three. Or get into outrageous debt that he has to work night and day to repay. Or pay it off with a legacy he received from a deceased relative. (The type of legacy you don't exactly get every day.) You just don't know for sure unless he tells you and even then there is no guarantee that he might tell you the truth.

Anyway, the more you know about said neighbor, the less inclined you might be to envy him. So it might be better for your own peace of mind if you resist the urge to make assumptions about people until you have gotten to know more about them. And bear in mind that even the most open of people tend to be like icebergs in that they don't always show everything in their past to the people they encounter in their present.

Come to think of it, there are probably a great many secrets that you may have from the world at large. And for all you know, there may quite a few people out there who envy you -- though I doubt that such people would ever admit it. And it goes without saying that you would probably care as little about the assumptions such enviers make about you that the people you envy care about the assumptions you make about them. So perhaps it is best to resist the lure of envy altogether.