On following envy and creating a personal archive
Writing on envy feels like a surprising appropriate way to open up my first blog post. I was listening to the Podcats How To Build a life with Lori Gotleib. She has this interesting idea that we should use envy to help us identify what we enjoy. She says:
"Yeah, and a good way to figure out what is fun for you is to look at your envy. People don’t like to feel envy. They feel like it’s kind of like a taboo. They don’t want to feel that. They think that they’re a bad person for feeling that. But actually, envy is very instructive, and envy tells us something about desire. And so I always say to people: Follow your envy. It tells you what you want. And so when you are envious of someone or something or some experience, that’s a clue to what might be enjoyable for you. We are so hesitant to look at our desire. We don’t want to give space for desire. We’re so much about the shoulds, as opposed to the “What do I want? What does desire look like for me?” We feel like it’s almost a selfish act."
What she said in this little section really challenged how I understood the feeling of envy. First I’ll say that I conflated jealousy and envy. I never wanted to be that jealous woman who looks through her boyfriend’s phone, or who is constantly suspicious of every other woman blah blah blah. And so for me, being envious and jealous were the same thing and there was no difference between the jealous woman and wanting something that someone else has. I didn’t realise how much I was wrongly judging very valid human feelings and unintentionally repressing my own feelings because I didn’t want to come across a certain way. But getting back to the topic, jealousy according to emotions researcher Brene Brown, is when we “fear losing a relationship or a valued part of a relationship that we already have” So for example, its when our friend makes a new friend and we are scared that they are going to replace us or its when our parent starts dating someone new and we are scared that we are going to loose the closeness that we have. It’s a feeling that involves three people—us, our loved one and a third person we are not connected to.
Envy on the other hand, is an emotion that involves two people. Brown defines envy as wanting something that someone else already has. So for example, it’s when we want to have the same body as that other girl, or when we also want to be able to buy new clothes on a whim like that other girl. For me, envy comes out in how I criticise someone. So I would see some of my childhood friends start YouTube channels and vlogs and I was sooo judgemental of them for “trying so hard” and I would judge them as being shallow for caring about make-up or whatever.
But my biggest battle with envy was when I met this one girl who is in my PhD program. Not only is she smart, because obviously we are in the same program, but she is stunning. She always looked polished, her and her now husband both drive jeeps, she had designer bags and shoes and of course her make-up was always on point. And to top it off, she is one of the kindest and warmest people I have ever met—so I couldn’t even come up with a reason to hate her. I was, and still am, deeply envious of her because she has all the things I’ve always wanted: to show up with my designer bag, make a fabulous argument about Foucauldian disciplinary spaces and then check my lipstick. Meeting her made me see that I was judging all those other girls who had started channels and blogs because I was envious of them. But I thought envy was a bad emotion that then makes you a bad person for having that feeling. So I just packed that feeling away, not realising that my envy seeped through in my criticism of other people and their YouTube channels. I recently shared my feelings with her in a letter. And since then, I have been able to define the things that I desire the most: to share my life with beautiful words and images. To create an archive of my existence.
Who have you felt envious of? Why? What have you don’t about those feelings? I would love to hear from you in the comment section.
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