Befriending the green-eyed monster

An personal exploration of jealousy and envy

A former colleague has just been awarded a really influential role in a government advisory committee. I am happy for her, but also feel that familiar pang of envy.

It reminds me of how I felt about a close schoolfriend. She worked hard for high grades and in the weeks before our exams she would disappear from the social scene altogether. Come results time, teachers would compare us, saying my grades could be just as good if only I applied myself a little more. It left me with a really bad attitude towards swatters, while underneath the green-eyed monster lurked.

As a young adult, I chose the glamour of a career in television. It seemed like an easy route to stardom, changing the world with my writing, and gaining instant recognition. But it was not to be. Being a journalist terrified me and again, I wasn’t really willing to make the sacrifices it demanded to reach the top. Instead, I married a tv journalist and set to making babies. Sadly, my first two pregnancies ended in miscarriage and once again the green-eyed monster reared its ugly head and bit me squarely on the bum.

By the time I finally figured out what I wanted to be when I grew up, I also became a mum. I decided to build my psychology career from the bottom up, becoming a volunteer with the Samaritans first and then progressing to part-time counselling training towards a diploma and later a masters. This building block approach suited my pace much better. And once I started to follow my bliss, things began to fall into place, and I believed I had stopped envying people whom I secretly judged to be more successful.    

Then one day, I was entertaining my class with stories of a young Lysanne who could have gotten high grades if she wanted to but chose to scrape by with B’s and C’s so that she could hang out with her friends and have fun. I didn’t mention the green-eyed envy monster. Then I told them about my ambitious schoolfriend, who I loved and loathed equally. At that point, one of my classmates, hearing the change of tone in my voice, called me out; “you spin a good yarn,” she said, “but underneath it I still hear envy.”

This is the joy of a good mental health training. You get called out on your gremlins. And she called me out on my hidden envy! To flesh this out further, our tutor set us the task of reflecting on jealousy and envy; “if you want what someone else has, ask yourself why it is you don’t have it. Be honest. Is it due to actions within your control, or not? And is it really the thing they have that you want, or something it might represent?”

Comparison tends to feed envy and it causes limitation

We speak of jealousy when you want to take something away from another person, whereas envy is more about wishing that you had what they have. I didn’t wish my schoolfriend or my colleague ill. A part of me just wanted the acclaim that went with their successes. That’s what I was envious of. My core family valued social achievement highly, and its attendant acclaim. Be honest, my tutor had said.

And so, after some further soul searching, I realised that while I envied them their acclaim, I valued my freedom to live a less ambitious life more. Playing in the streets with my schoolfriends as a teenager or spending weekends in the woods with my husband and son, instead of swatting for higher grades were my own active choices. Envying someone their success when they worked hard for it was actually quite unfair.

That said, I also needed to work on my own acclaim deficit. Instead of seeking external validation, I would do well to give myself acclaim for following my own path! For loving myself enough to make my own choices. The choice to go for the higher grades would always be there. But my teachers were right, I loved life more than a scholarly or professional ambition.

When you walk a path driven by envy, copying others who have what you want, or what you think you should want to have, you either fail, or your achievements feel as insubstantial as popcorn. Because there will always be someone better than you.

But what about envy beyond your control?

Where my envy was due to circumstances beyond my control, the journey was much harder! Standing in the queue at Sainsbury’s, still bleeding from my last miscarriage, I raged at the unfairness of my losses compared to the pregnant mum in front of me, with her five unruly kids. Failing to be a mother felt beyond my control. So how was I supposed to deal with my envy there?

And ashamed of feeling as I did, I initially pushed these feelings away, trying to be ‘good’ and accepting of my lot. However, I learned that this pseudo spiritual by-passing just gave my envy more room to breathe. Acceptance can only come once you have worked through the envy, the grief, and the anger. And even then, it still feels deeply unfair. But life isn’t fair. Miscarriage, cancer, war, being born into poverty, into a minority group, none of it is fair. And all of it needs to be acknowledged for the pain that it causes. But then we must move on. Getting stuck in the envy just adds a kind of victimised insult to injury. Comparison feeds the green-eyed monster.

I had a choice. I could, as St. Martin’s prayer says, try to find the courage to accept the things that I can’t change, to take responsibility for the things that I can change, and to develop the wisdom to know the difference between the two.

So, when your own green-eyed monster rears its head, look at its soft vulnerable underbelly. What perceived lack is it laying bare. Would having ‘it’ really make you feel better about yourself? And for how long? Would you put in the effort to get what the others have, if you really want it, or do you have a different path? Or do you need to grieve and mourn to be able to move on and let go of the envy. Stop comparing and begin the hard work of getting to know yourself and then accepting yourself just as you are, in sickness or in health, in good times or in bad.

And so, as I learn about my colleague’s new job and feel the old pang of envy, I ask myself what I am afraid of. What I feel I am lacking at this stage in my professional life and whether I need to review some of my choices. And once that inner work is done, I can send her an honest, heartfelt congratulation!

Lysanne Sizoo, September 2024