If the green shoes fit...
What? They do. Size 9 if you must know. I am not so inured to the world that I don't feel envy.
When that form-letter rejection shows up in my box while a friend is hooting in delight about the three-book deal he just signed? When every other tweet in the stream is someone promoting a book I actually read didn't remotely enjoy?
When a CP is wrapping up their fifth book and I'm still grappling with the same damn story?
When I go to a Con and the authors are swept off to the publisher parties while I sit through another lecture on how to balance world-building against plot progression and character development?
Book cover reveals? Local signings? Lecture circuits? Industry panels? Requests to write a book? Movie adaptation? Action figures? Translations in 20+ languages? Every frippin' story about the .00001% who made it big?
Yes, yes, I do know the exact shade of green my eyes turn. Why? Because I allow myself to feel envy. Because -- as Jeffe and James have both said -- a taste of sin is a great motivator.
Also, repressing emotions is unhealthy.
However. I don't cling to the emotion. I don't stuff it in my bra and hope it makes me look more appealing. I feel the burn of a hostile emotion. I recognize it as envy. I shake it's hand.
I let it go.
I cringe when authors -- aspiring or published -- flaunt their envy. I bet most of them don't realize which sin is at the root of their disproportionate spite. They are too busy tearing down those around them that they can't hear the internal voice saying, "It's us, dummy. The problem is self-contained. Other people didn't do anything to us."
"You are being a fucktard."
Envy transforms somewhat well-adjusted adults into snarky teenagers picking apart the popular kids. Dirty looks, snide asides, not-so-quiet whispers -- all the classic passive-aggressive behaviors. Envy isn't as flamboyant as Wrath or as pretentious as Pride. Envy is insidious. It is the sin that starts rumors. Rumors in the era of constant connectivity are very easy to spread and even easier to get back to the targets of the envy. Rumors in the tight community of publishing will come back and bite the creator in the ass.
Whenever I'm bitch-slapped by the green-eyed monster, I remind myself: What are the people who have what I want thinking? They aren't thinking about me. They're thinking how they are going to achieve their next goal. Maybe I should stop eyeballing other people's success and focus on obtaining my own. Maybe I should stop sulking, get off my ass, and exceed my own expectations.
What about you, dear readers? Do you have a trick to snap yourself out of a spiteful mood? How do you turn away from the Sin of Envy?
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Very well said - I think all of us feels the envy, but your approach to it is brilliant.
ReplyDeleteThat and I'm still laughing at "You are being a fucktard." :-D
Thankyouveddymuch, Allyson! It is hard to maintain righteous fury in the face of the fucktard. :D
DeleteI think, too, that envy never really goes away. No matter how much success you have, there's always someone out there who has more - bigger deals, more books, etc.
ReplyDeleteThere's nothing wrong with wishing you had what someone else has - if it helps kick you in the pants to achieve your goals. The line gets shady if you start actively trying to push others down to make yourself rise.
Yes! So very true about Envy always being there. If it helps you create a goal you didn't realize you wanted, then great. You are so right about it becoming a sin when you stomp on others to get what you want.
DeleteAllison took mine! Yes - for all that we snickered, none of us is immune to envy. Seems like there's always someone who has it better. My sure fire cure? Keep my eyes on my own work. Concentrate on my writing and soon I stop devoting energy to the green monster.
ReplyDelete"Eyes on your own paper!" I totally hear my grade school teachers screaming that. Who'da thunkt back then they were teaching us not about cheating but about achieving.
DeleteEnvy is a sign post - a useful pointer that helps you refine your goals. But it takes parsing your envy - dissecting it down to the finest nuance to figure out exactly *what* it is you envy. The more you envy, the more data you gather and the easier it becomes to find the common denominator between all of the green-eyed monsters. Once you have that common denominator, you have your goal, something to write down and begin chasing. It won't look like anyone else's goal. It'll be 100% yours. And there's the real magic. You can't attain someone else's success via your envy. You have to ride the wave of your envy on a path all your own, defining a new success all your own. For others to envy. While you look around and realize there might not have been all that much to envy after all. Cause those damned dishes STILL won't do themselves.
ReplyDeleteI like the notion of envy's "common denominator." I think I'll start paying more attention to that to make sure the goals I'm setting are the ones that will yield what I really want.
DeleteAwesome post, KAK. I think anyone who said they didn't have a little envy hiding in their hearts somewhere would be lying (to themselves especially). Acknowledge it and, like you said, 'let it go'. Or use it to light the fire under your ass. But don't wrap it around yourself like some magical 'comforter of righteousness'. Or you really will be a fucktard. ;o)
ReplyDeleteThe Magical Comforter of Righteousness, now available in four weights of envy!
DeleteLOL. Love it.
Love that, too - brilliant!
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