Buzz, Balls & Hype : THE DOCTOR IS IN

ENVY, JEALOUSY, COMPETITIVENESS, AND SCHADENFREUDE, Part 2

First, as suggested, a definition of terms:

Envy: painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage
Jealousy: hostility toward a rival or one believed to enjoy an advantage
Competitiveness: the tendency to contend with another or others, as for a profit or prize
Schadenfreude: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others

[Mishmash of Merriam-Webster and American Heritage; this is my column, so words mean what I say they mean. I appreciate the suggestion that I examine the relationships among the phenomena, and hope to explore these in a later post.]

Now, why I think I don't suffer as much from these demons as other people I know:

Miserable childhood: Yes, I know you had one, too; quite possibly even worse than mine. This is not a competition. However, every unhappy childhood is unhappy in its own way. My family's particular brand of misery drove me to escape into books and movies. Some unhappy children find comfort in stories of deprivation and humiliation similar to, or even more intense than, theirs. (I imagine the Dalai Lama, as described by MJ, was one of those.) I wasn't like that. I loved stories about girls who had brains and beauty, great families, a million friends, school success, and any other advantages a fanciful author or director could come up with. Think Fred & Ginger, Nancy Drew, Elizabeth Bennett. (Of course, I loved the Brontes and The 400 Blows, too, but they were not my comfort food.) The result, I think, was that I grew used, at an early age, to enjoying vicarious success and happiness. I didn't compare my lot to these heroines'; I was them, and their joy and triumphs were mine, at least until the book ended.
Low expectations: Susanne Dunlap attributes some of her lack of envy to her difficulty believing that she deserves her own success. One of the miseries of my childhood was that I was constantly being told, by adults in my family, that I was unattractive and boring. "What a shame the brains went to the girl and the looks & personality went to the boy" was a common lament. (You can imagine how happy this made both my brother--who, it turns out, is very smart--and me to hear this repeatedly.) To a child who wanted to act and to write original material, this was demoralizing. At school, I felt that, outside of a small, tight circle of friends, people looked on me the same way. (As an adult, I learned that this wasn't quite true--a number of old classmates have since told me they found me interesting and attractive, but standoffish. And it turns out that at least some of the boys who called me up & then didn't know what to say, or dropped poems in my locker, were not mocking me, after all. Who knew? But we're talking about perceptions here.) When you believe nearly everyone thinks badly of you, you either sink into sycophancy and become desperate for approval, or develop sources of satisfaction and self-esteem that are independent of others' approval. After wavering between the two options, I eventually chose the latter, opting to believe that I was indeed gorgeous and fascinating; I just hadn't stumbled on my people yet. In the meantime, I wrote, sang, swam, read, etc., to please nobody but myself. As a result, every prize-winning composition, and every role in a school play, seemed an unlooked-for perk, a gift from the universe. Of course I never got into the state finals, or got the lead in a play, but so what? I could identify with those who did, and enjoy their imagined feelings at close range.
Familial disapproval: My mother's family still believed, when I was growing up, that the stage was not a respectable career; and that while a lady might write clever, discreet stories and poems, she never tried to publish them. My father's family was more liberal--they enjoyed a good play, poem or song, but these were activities you engaged in as recreation after the real day's work was done; anyone who declared his or her intention of "being" an actor/writer/singer, etc., was a weakling who only wanted to avoid an honest day's work. Internalizing these beliefs made it difficult for me to pursue my passions wholeheartedly--but, on the other hand, I didn't ever have to worry about letting my family down by not being good enough. Just doing it took more bravery than I sometimes had; the idea of comparing my efforts to those of people with supportive families hardly occurred to me.
Success at loathed endeavors: At one time, I was much in demand as a development and speech writer. I was well paid, and worked for fairly prestigious organizations. And I hated it. Sometimes (most spectacularly when I worked for the campaign to restore the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island) I was crazy about nearly everyone I worked with (most remain good friends to this day); enjoyed all the surrounding hoopla; loved having ready cocktail-party chat about my work; and appreciated deeply the fact that such jobs existed; that people like me, without a lot of marketable skills, could earn a living outside of panhandling. But the work itself repelled me. I hated that I was so good at it--that I could sell nearly anything to anyone, whether I believed in it or not. I felt sleazy and false a great deal of the time. It took quite a while, and several false starts, for me to believe I was entitled to leave a field that took care of me so well and pursue vocations that drew me, even though I might be considered boring, unattractive, not respectable, a shirker, and unqualified. As a result, I tend not to measure "success" in external terms--size of paycheck, degree of prestige, etc. I can look at myself in the mirror without cringing. That's a lot.

I thank you all for your thoughtful comments and hope you will keep them coming. Dialogue with people like you is another one of the many gifts I often feel I don't deserve.

Susan O'Doherty, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist with a New York City-based practice. A fiction writer herself, she specializes in issues affecting writers and other creative artists. She is the author of Getting Unstuck without Coming Unglued: A Woman's Guide to Unblocking Creativity (Seal, 2007). Her Career Coach column appears every Monday on Inside Higher Ed's Mama, Ph.D. blog , and she is a regular monthly panelist on Litopia After Dark . Send your questions to her at Dr.Sue at mindspring dot com.

5 Comments

Wow. You sound like the most well-adjusted child/teen there ever was! No wonder you've developed such wisdom. And such a distinct voice in your writing. Thank you for sharing so much of yourself with all of us.

Posted by: susanne dunlap | January 29, 2010 at 08:46 AM

Heh, Susanne, I did not mean to give the (highly erroneous) impression that I was well adjusted as a child. I had my demons, believe me--this just wasn't one of them! (I did go through a phase of envy & contempt, when I was working at jobs I disliked, and not writing or acting. Like Cara, I found the antidote in working on my own stuff.)

Posted by: Susan O'Doherty | January 31, 2010 at 07:37 PM