Here is one exercise I came up with: consciously visualize greater success for people of whom you are jealous. Generalize it to everyone, but in detail. Think of specific people, and pray for them (or wish them well, in whatever manner is consistent with your own ideas on reality).
For me, sometimes, I wish I were a big wheel. I wish I had the M.D., the house, the car, the beautiful wife, and the 2.2 beaming, successful kids to sit around the Christmas tree with and sip some fine wine that I can afford because, hell, I’m a doctor.
This is nice enough, and someday something close to it may come to pass, but the simple reality is that I am who I am mainly because of decisions I’ve made or not made, and in a very small part because of the luck (good and bad) that happens to all of us.
I sometimes comfort myself with the patent fact that many “rich” people aren’t happy. A brother of a friend used to make $5 million or more every year. Now he complains that it’s less than a million. He has to sell one of his $5 million homes. His wife is fat, and he is in a bad mood most of the time. He drinks a LOT.
Or take the patent fact that a lot of bed hopping happens in a lot of ritzier neighborhoods (hell, everywhere). There are a lot of unhappy marriages, broken homes, and traumatized kids. Part of the price of large success is very hard work, which often leads to alienation from your family.
So one can do that analysis. I have done it. But what are you really doing? Bringing them down to your level. Well, I have this problem and that, but so do they, so they are just as unhappy as I am. As gratifying as this may be, it is not actually satisfying. It’s a form of Schadenfreude, which is just an amelioration of misery, not a positive good.
Sunlight is infinite (pedants let that go), and so is our ability to accomodate ourselves happily through creation with the outward circumstances of our lives. Plainly, some lives would be virtually impossible to live happily–say that of a poor, hungry, abused woman–but you can always live more happily if you choose to seek it. As I believe Abraham Lincoln put it “most men are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
And this starts with being supportive of the happiness of others.
So find that guy with the Porsche and hot girlfriend, or that woman with a great man, unlimited allowance and beautiful kids (or fantastic career, take your pick), and imagine them being happier.
Say the man is overworked. Imagine/pray for him to have more energy, a more positive attitude, and for the relationship he has with his family to strengthen. See them all smiling and being happy. See him getting promoted. See him having a wonderful vacation skiing with his wife and kids. See them getting old gracefully together.
Imagine that woman finding the perfect outfit, and absolutely beaming when she gets to wear it out. Be happy for her, ESPECIALLY if you don’t like her and are jealous. [Note: I am indulging in some stereotypes. Like most stereotypes, this one has some validity, in my observation]. Imagine her children getting awards and being successful. Imagine her dealing well with the daily stresses of home life. Imagine her, too, growing old happily with her man, who dotes on her and is perfectly faithful.
Or imagine that independent strong woman you always wanted to be rising to be CEO or Partner, or whatever the pinnacle of her career might be. Imagine her finding a man who is willing to share all that with her–if that’s what she wants, and I think most women do. Imagine her taking daring, exciting vacations all around the world, having a ball volunteering in Africa, or South America, windsurfing, sunbathing. Imagine her growing old gracefully, and contented with the outcome of her life.
It seems to me as you go through this process, you create more space for yourself. You don’t have to play defense.
I think quite often when we are jealous of others, absent a strongly competitive spirit, we unconsciously try less hard. You think, “they are successful because they are like THAT”. I didn’t get that. I’m not like that. My parents/school/life never taught me that.
In other words, in the process of justifying your own relatively lesser success, you create a self fulfilling prophecy, in which you try less hard because of some supposed ontological, innate disposition you don’t have, rather than because you simply have not made a decision to succeed.
And in visualizing the success of others, you create a template for yourself. Why not want a world in which everyone is happy and thriving? As I have said before, if things get too easy, we can always create problems for ourselves.
As things stand, though, I see kids emulating vampires and zombies, not creatures of light. Something is very messed up in our society, and I think it is what I have called at times our “Resentment Transmutation Mechanism”, aka “Meaning System”.
This is the reason you are happy when odds say you should be sad. It is the reason you succeed when odds say you should fail. It’s the sun and the rain, and the fertile earch in which you plant your seeds to grow.
That’s what I am trying to create here, for both you and me: a better way to live.