On Being Authentic About Envy: Part 1

I've been doing some personal development work lately (inspired by Werner Erhard's ideas), and it's
come up for me that envy has been a big deal in my life.
Envy isn't something I'm proud of (I cringe when I think about it), but I find that being authentic about it
helps me open up new possibilities for being a better man, husband and father. Being authentic about
envy has helped me transform from a miserable loner into a happily married man (and now, dad).
Anyway, I didnt get that envy was a big deal for me until I asked myself, Who am I that grace is? (by
grace I mean the good things in life).
This seemed like a strange sort of question at first, but it helped me open up to receiving knowledge
from the realm of "what I don't know that I don't know." And perhaps that is the realm where envy
exists, hiding and skulking in the darkness.
After asking that strange question I was surprised by the answer I got: scarcity. Or more precisely, I got
this answer: "grace is scarce here." I discovered that during my early days I had sentenced myself to
being a person for whom grace is scarce here.
And for 43 years, that statement was as true for me as the sun will come up tomorrow - since I was
always here and everywhere I went I couldnt help but be grace is scarce here.
I took it for granted that grace was only scarce here, where I was, and not there, where other people
were. I didn't know this, of course. And I didnt know that I didn't know it. That was the tricky part.
Hence the need to ask that strange question.
As Werner would say, I was being used by a context, constituted in language. That context was "grace is
scarce here."
While I was being "grace is scarce here," I was basically obligated to notice other people having what I
could never have, doing what I could never do, or being who I could never be. It was a compulsion; it
was a program in my brain that would run automatically in the background, beyond my awareness.
And while I was coming from this context, all I could be and all I could do was be hostile (even if just
under the surface) and act like an asshole (while pretending to act like a nice guy).
What a recipe for a phony, miserable existence!
Fortunately during my inquiry I also discovered at least one cure for envy and the misery that goes along
with it.
But not until I got clear about another aspect of envy(shame)
The half-truthful aspect of this life sentence is that I really was missing something, like a loving
relationship, or a BMW, or washboard abs, or whatever. The false aspect of it is the suggestion that I
could never have that something, only other people could have it.

Envy stems from the unexamined assumption that I am in-here and life is out-there. I take myself to
be and I live as though I am located in-here, with all else in life located out-there. That is, I unwittingly
separate me and not me as being in-here and out-there, respectively. This is also called living a
concept life or living life in the stands. Werner Erhard teaches this topic in his Being a Leader course,
as mastering life by living out-here. Buckminster Fuller must have been referring to this sort of mastery
when he admonished his readers to dare to be naive in his book, Synergetics.
The trouble with envy comes from identifying yourself with an envying context, and then making it into
a life sentence. That is, you literally sentence yourself to living as someone who is on my own.
Constructed in language. For example, the Genesis of identity topic from Being a Leader I based on each
of us making a decision about we could never be. This decision is at the heart of the matter of envy.
Other people occur to you as having what you could never have, doing what you could never do, or
being who you could never be.
On Being Authentic About Envy: Part 2
When your heart is in your dreams, no request is too extreme. [Jimminy Cricket]
It took me eight years of personal development work to be able to write this. I hope that by sharing
these posts someone will be inspired to discover for himself or herself what I have discovered for
myself...and a lot sooner than I did.
One of the common errors I make is to unthinkingly judge other people as having the same worldview as
myself; that is, I assume that I occur to other people as they occur to me.
This doesnt seem so bad at first. After all, reciprocation is at the heart of the Golden Rule: ie. do unto
others as you would have them do unto you, right?
Well yes, but I find the Golden Rule works best when applied authentically (by choice) and without
compulsion, which is rarely the case when I am identified with my personality.
The trouble begins when I reciprocate with my fellow man according to the dictates of my personality,
rather than the higher principles of conscience. In that case, Im applying the Gloomy Rule, not the
Golden Rule.
I call it the Gloomy Rule because do unto others as you would have them do unto you doesnt work
when Im coming from a context of grace is scarce here. Coming from this context, others show up for
me as objects of hostility - and in true reciprocal fashion I show up for myself as an object of hostility as
well, but this time from the point of view of other people.
While envy tends to show up for me as hostility towards others, it tends to show up as shame toward
myself. These two ways of being - hostility and shame - seem to arise together, as two sides of the same
coin; along with the other-oriented hostility arises the self-oriented shame. It appears that I cant have
one without the other: if I am hostile toward others, then I cant help but be ashamed of myself.
Strange, that.

For most of my adult life Ive imbibed deeply from the cup of shame.
Shame is a desire to cover myself up to avoid being seen, most likely in anticipation of ridicule, scorn,
insults, criticism, humiliation and the like. Shame is all about avoidance, and is accompanied by a lack of
action, or some sort of withdrawing from the world. An excess of shame tends to snuff out possibilities
for being and acting. It can be a real destroyer of human potential.
Thus, playing the game of life by the Gloomy Rule keeps me playing a very small game indeed, as I
withhold the expression of my true Self from the world. So long as I hide my blessings from the world, so
the logic goes, I am safe from harm.
Welcome to the twisted logic of the personality: according to the Gloomy Rule I must strictly keep to
myself any blessings that I may have. I dont share them with others, not because I lack something
valuable to share, but because I fear that I myself may become the object of someone elses envy. And
deep down I know how terrible it must feel to be on the receiving end of such malice, cruelty and
hostility.
The great irony is that I may consider myself to be a highly creative and imaginative person, yet I cannot
summon the will to share my creativity with others. Whatever I am capable of creating never sees the
light of day and I take my creative potential to the grave with me. Tragic, that. Oliver Wendell Holmes
put it well in his poem The Voiceless:
Alas for those that never sing,
But die with all their music in them.
The lesson for me in all this: I cant be happily married while I am hostile toward women, no matter how
much I try to act otherwise. I cant be rich while envying rich people. I cant be healthy while envying
healthy people, and so on and so on. Basically, I close myself off from receiving the goodness that I see
in others, so long as I am coming from grace is scarce here, with malice in my heart.
Why does shame keep me poor and miserable? Remember the definition of poor, which comes from
from pre-Latin *pau-paros, meaning "producing little; getting little."
It goes back to the idea we reap what we sow. In other words, the good things in life will come to me
if am willing to share my blessings with a sufficient number of people, so that I really impact the quality
of their lives. Charles Haanel put it this way in The Master Key System:
...we shall find that the more we give the more we get. Giving in this sense implies service.
The banker gives his money, the merchant gives his goods, the author gives his thought, the
workman gives his skill; all have something to give, but the more they can give, the more
they get, and the more they get the more they are enabled to give.
It seems to me that overcoming poverty has something to do with loosening the constraints of our
personality-straitjackets. When this happened for me, I suddenly stopped being so miserable and an
opening showed up for me to add something new.
That something new was gratitude. Lo and behold. Being grateful for the good things in my life turned
out to be an excellent cure for envy, which is really just another word for ingratitude.

I also discovered this: if I want to stop covering up and hiding my true Self, if I want to express myself
more completely, if I want to experience the joy of sharing my blessings with the world, then I can start
by being grateful for the blessings I already have.
I started with being grateful for some of the most apparently mundane things. I am grateful for this
clean air. For this hot shower. For being able to walk.
The more I have looked for ways to be grateful, the more blessings I have found, and the more willing
Ive become to share them with others.
Strange, that. And beautiful. Thank you for reading.