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Today's
Meditation:
We would
never envy another person if we were completely in tune
with ourselves and who we are. We are all unique
individuals, yet we tend to see ourselves as less than
that, and we tend to think that others have things much
better than we do. Of course, that's not a truth,
but a deception. When we do accept ourselves and
appreciate all our gifts, then we can see others and what we
do accurately-- not as some sort of judgment on who we are
or what we do.
Envy
really is a symptom. It shows us that something is
lacking in our lives, and it's usually not the object that
we're envying. If I envy my neighbor because of his
or her new car, then I'm probably feeling bad about my own
inability to afford such a vehicle. My issue is with
my ability to buy what I want rather than the vehicle
itself. If I envy someone because of their ability
to write, then I'm not satisfied with my own ability to
work with numbers or to use my other gifts.
Of
course, there's envy, and then there's envy.
Personally, I could say that I do envy others their
ability to draw or to paint, but that's not an envy that
consumes me-- it's simply an "I would love to be able
to do that" feeling, not a "My life is so
unsatisfying because I can't do that" feeling.
I often tell people that I envy them for their abilities,
but only in the sense that it would be cool to be able to
do what they do, not in the sense that I would change the
way I am in order to be able to do it.
I
appreciate my own gifts, and I do what I can to develop
them and practice them and use them. Other people
have other gifts, and I'm not going to waste any time
wishing that their gifts were mine-- mine are enough as
they are. Envy can be a terrible burden to carry
around, and life is far too short to spend it with
burdens. Let's carry around our gifts and share them
with others instead of carrying burdens and hoping that
others will help us to bear them.
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