Happy Friday and first of July, my dears, and welcome to the Open Mic! Later in July I’ll be welcoming some fun guest artists to our stage, starting with the IWL anthology next week. For today, let’s talk. If you’re new here or have forgotten how this works, I pose a question and we discuss in the comments. Ready? Here we go!
Since we started the week on a discussion of authenticity and feeling “enough,” I thought we’d end by further exploring that concept as it relates to our views of other people.
Love this photo!
First: Whom do you envy? Why? This can be a specific person, or it can be a generalized group of people who have certain attributes or lifestyles.
Second: Who might envy you? Why?
The mic stays open all weekend. Have at it!
satsumabug.com | Lisa Hsia 
If someone could envy me, they would most likely be– a hungry person, unable to buy food, or a homeless person. Other than those obvious things that I have, perhaps a very new writer who’s still learning the basics? Oh, a woman in a store did once tell me that she envied my well shaped behind.
I’m going to try something new for myself, and not characterize one way or another the next bit I’m going to write here. It’s the truth and, for now, I don’t care how it sounds: I envy dancers with their exquisite, artistic control over the muscles in their their bodies. I envy those with smooth healthy skin, and the emotional ability some have to do the work to achieve the reasonably flat stomach that makes clothes hang so well. I envy those who have these attributes, for the superificial ease these can bring to their lives. I also envy Neil deGrasse Tyson for his playful scientific mind. And now I am resisting the urge to cut and paste that last sentence to the head of my list.
A well shaped behind is definitely envy-worthy. 😉 I also bet a lot of people envy you your incredible daughter and your relationship with her. I envy you your roots in a super cool city. 🙂
I envy dancers as well. Actually, it’s that exact envy — and a well-phrased comment from a dancer friend — that got me into modern dance and yoga almost a decade ago. I was lamenting to her, “I so wish I had a dancer’s body,” and she said baldly, “Lisa, I think the easiest way for you to get a dancer’s body would be to dance.” I couldn’t argue with that, and so I danced instead. I still miss the dancer’s body I had then (a beginning dancer’s body, but at least it was something!), but I’m so glad I listened to her.
Who envys me ? (Did I spell that correctly?) Several friends have said that they envy the stage I am in my life. I stay at home -keep house – my wife brings home the bacon. That’s the decision we made. My friends still have to work for their pensions etc.
Who do I envy? Well, I don’t think about it much. I wish I could be better at some of the things I do and sometimes I envy people who are already good at it. But I guess they have a natural talent I don’t have or they have already put the hours in. I’m getting too reflective. I envy my friend, Pete Smith, he’s a brilliant guitarist and has taught me a lot. I envy his ability. But Pete still struggles to make a decent living, and probably always will. I don’t envy that.
Yes… I imagine many people do envy you your stage in life! It sounds like a good place to be in — as does your balanced view on envying others. 🙂
First of all, that pic is priceless! Never thought Sophia would ever need to envy anyone else’s decolletage!
As for me, I envy anyone who cuts an elegant figure. Otherwise, I’m not an envious person really. I just mildly wish I had more of those attributes that I admire in other people, like passion for what they do, or a natural good taste in clothes etc. I guess I envy dancers, like Re said up there, and I wish I could play the guitar too. But mostly I’m just grateful for what I have. I would have loved having more kids though, so when I see people multiplying merrily it makes me pretty envious.
The only thing that anyone could possibly envy in me would be my rapport with my husband and the happy relationship we have built for ourselves.
Also my ability to chew very slowly and take ages over a meal, which helps to keep my weight in control 😉
Isn’t it such a great photo? I chose it not just because it’s funny but for exactly the reason you point out — Sophia doesn’t need to envy anyone else, but the photo shows that there will always be someone else bigger (ahem) and better (by some criteria) than you! 😉
I hear you on envying elegance. For years that was my biggest aspiration: to look elegant!
A wonderful relationship and resistance to bolting your food? I know people who would eat their hearts out with envy for those assets. 😉
up until VERY recently (as you know!), every time i saw or heard of someone who was employed, i would feel disgruntled and jealous. even though (as you know, again) my unemployment was somewhat voluntary, i would unconsciously start to compare myself to them. it reached pretty epic proportions considering a large majority of people are employed in some way! i found myself thinking “hmm i wonder how you get a job twirling a sign for round table… i could do that…” didn’t matter if they were hotshot investment bankers or taking movie stubs at the theater, at least they were EMPLOYED! now that i’ve joined the ranks of the “employed” it feels sooo weird. i’m so used to being on the other side that i can’t quite wrap my head around the fact that i have a JOB.
as for others being jealous of me, basically anything i’m thankful for in my life i’m sure could be fodder for envy!
Oh man, those sign-twirling people! That is not a job for you! Hope yours is going okay. 🙂
This is along the same lines as what Lisa has said before… I envy artists that have this burning desire to give up everything and dedicate themselves to their work. Sometimes I think I should be living in a greasy flat with roaches for roommates, waiting tables and writing every spare minute of my day and night. But… really… are these people happy? Why am I envious of someone tortured and miserable? And besides, I have so many other things that I’m passionate about as well as my work… exercising, backpacking, climbing, snowboarding, travelling, etc… So I guess you could say I envy my philosophy professor from school who did all these things, rode his bike 10 miles everyday, was an inspiration to his students, and somehow managed to balance it all.
What a great way to make a point. I rarely think of why anyone might be envious of me. My grandmother once told me she was envious of my adventurousness (she started having kids at 17 and only just rode on a plane for the first time.) Others have said they’re envious of of my athletic inclinations. If that’s so, then I’m probably jealous of them enjoying a beer while I’m running!
-Margaret
UrchinMovement.com
Margaret, I envy that philosophy professor too! How do people do it? I have no idea!
One thing I’ve really enjoyed about the classmates in my recent writing workshop is that everyone comes from vastly different backgrounds. Everyone is equally committed to their art, from those whose lives have closely resembled the starving bohemian model, to those who’ve been more comfortable… and we’re not just diverse in terms of class/finances, but in ethnicity, sexuality, physical ability — lots of things. It has been a really eye-opening experience to be creating with this group, and very affirming.
I have certainly done my share of envying adventurous and athletic people. 🙂
Whom do I envy? I envy those who have gotten so far in art that they are leaving their dream and make it seem like they didn’t even try hard at all. I envy all some art majors from my past college who won every scholarship all the semesters that I was there. And lastly, I envy those who can balance art and relationships because I can’t do that. I put way more time into my art pieces rather than my relationships, so those always go down the drain. (Maybe I should date an artist.)
Who might envy you? I actually know a close personal friend of mine who actually envies me and I hate it. They envy me because I got accepted into one of the top colleges in our state (even though we were going for two different majors) and I’m moving to a beautiful city where it’s full of art and music at every corner. I wish they didn’t feel that way, but they got accepted to an equally good school and I’m supporting them all the way!
Ah, envy is such a curious thing — I put way more time into my relationships than my art, and though that’s partly a choice, I always wish I could prioritize my work higher… just sometimes… so I could get more done!
That’s true, it’s incredibly awkward to be envied by someone close to us. It’s so much a “grass is greener” thing, or yes, envy that’s not on a logical foundation (like the two different majors). I read something fairly recently about not making “inappropriate comparisons” and it just totally woke me up to how much I’ve compared myself with people who are way older or have way different experience. And when you think about it, everyone is so individual that almost all comparisons are inappropriate… not that I ever remember this when I need to! ;b
[…] you have not yet read through the anthology, which is online at http://www.theintersection.org/iwl/2011, I encourage you to check it out — not just to read my piece, which is the first in the table […]
I meant to comment on this post last weekend but I didn’t have time, and then this week got so crazy! It’s been so interesting reading everyone’s responses. Thank you.
I used to feel a lot more envious and jealous of people; these days, it helps that even on bad days I never want to be anyone but myself. I want to be a better version of myself, for sure! — but I wouldn’t change lives with anyone else. Still, I have a lot of longing around wanting to look a certain way… more athletic or just thinner, more sexy instead of so good-girl-looking, etc. I know this is a grass-is-greener situation because so many svelter women wish they had boobs like mine, and anyone who’s ever had acne would envy me my skin. But yeah. Does anyone love their looks on that superficial adolescent level? Even models know they’re being airbrushed!
I do wish I had the complete comfort with myself that I sometimes see in other people. I think I’m pretty open on this blog, but in person I still wish I could come across cooler, and that makes me restrain myself from being fully as weird and nervous and spontaneous as I would like to be. Sometimes I see other people wearing or doing or saying something so strange and amazing that it seems clear that they don’t care what anyone thinks. I would like to be that way.
As for being envied, I’m aware that I have an extremely enviable life — and not just my current life but the circumstances that have made me. I try to remember that as often as possible.
OMG, that photo is hilarious!! 😉
Hmm…this is such a tough topic for me. I suppose the people who I most envy are those who have the disposable income to experience what I perceive as being “more” than what I have–travel, food, time with friends (as opposed to having to work to pay bills), etc. It’s hard for me to indulge in those thoughts without then following up with my usual self-berating: “I have so much, I really shouldn’t be longing for more,” and so on…Desire is such a tricky thing, isn’t it?
As for who envies me…wow, I’m not sure. I do have friends who have said that I seem to “have it all together,” which always strikes me as funny, because from my perspective, I can always find something else in my life that needs to be “fixed,” but I suppose in the grand scheme of things, I really do have a pretty amazing life. Probably would do me good to remember that more often. 😉
Hee, everybody seems to have a different definition of what it means to “have it all together.” (Or even just to “have it all”!) We have a solid amount of disposable income, thanks to Erik’s hard work and the world’s willingness to reward his ability with money (hello, non-arts sectors!), but even I am constantly thinking it would be nice to have x, y, and z besides. That’s why I am committed to remembering things like my Fourth of July gratitude post. Even if our income were halved, we’d still be well-off by most standards and obscenely well-off by world standards. I have to keep reminding myself that my wants are, mostly, artificial and extremely new on the scale of human history! But don’t beat yourself up too badly for wanting more — we’d all probably still be living in caves if we didn’t have that hard-wired into us. 😉