Aw, He’s Probably a Nerd, but It’s for Sure He’s Ugly
by Gary Calton
via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 22 No. 4, December 1996
What happens when a friend gets a job advertised at twice your pay? How do you feel when one of the guys at work gets the promotion you hoped for? On the other hand, what happens when your best friend finally retires? Try as you may, the feelings you have in the first two instances are not the same as the feeling you have in the last.
Why is that, and how can we deal with the feelings that we have in each case?
Recently, psychologist Peter Salovey reviewed some of his findings on envy in American Scientist, and I think you’ll find them helpful. Salovey defines envy as a situation in which you don’t possess something but someone else does. You would like to have it and think that
they don’t deserve to have it. The "it" in question could be anything. It could be a romantic relationship with someone that you think is very attractive. It could be an attribute such as intelligence or looks. Perhaps you don’t like the cut of your nose, your chin, or the extra weight you’ve put on. It might even be a possession such as a car, a house, or a job. You are envious when someone else has something you want.
To study envy, Salovey created situations in which envy could occur. He found that three things were necessary to create envy: the person with whom you are comparing yourself has to be similar to you and successful in a similar area; the feedback you get has to be relatively negative compared to the other person; and, most importantly, the area of comparison must be important to you.
In other words, you don’t envy people who are not in a situation much like your own.
Students envy other students, not the physicians, lawyers, or professors they hope to become one day. We don’t envy those who are rich when we meet them, but we do envy those who become rich while we know them. Especially if they take advantage of things that we fail to recognize until after the fact or recognize and fail to act on. The familiar complaint is "I could have done that, but .." and then we add some relevant or irrelevant excuse. We are more likely to be envious if someone who matters to us makes a comparison or points out the disparity.
And it must be important to us. I don’t have a problem with beautiful heads of hair. It just isn’t important to me. Mine’s gone, and I know it. But you and I have all seen men who are extremely sensitive about their hair. They comb 6 to 10 inches worth from one side of their head to the other (across what appears to be acres of vacant space), or they spend a fortune on hair transplants. Their hair problem will make them sensitive about it, and we need to remember that, lest we gain their undying enmity.
Salovey found that if he took premed students and gave them a fake personality test indicating great artistic aptitude or great scientific ability, he could easily produce envy. He put them in contact with someone who got the same result on the test or someone who didn’t. He found that envious students distanced themselves from someone who supposedly had superior ability. They also began to make derogatory comments about the other person as they decided that he wasn’t so smart, or was really pretty ugly, or at least was a nerd. As college students, they found all kinds of ways to put down their rivals.
What Salovey said seems obvious to many of us. However, by knowing the enemy, we can overcome him more easily. "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; ... envyings, ...” (Galatians 5:19, 21). Defining how Satan gets us into the mood of envying might help us overcome our envyings. It will certainly help us think more charitably about someone we think is full of envy. (Beware how we think he thinks: "For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him?" (I Corinthians 2:11)). We need to examine our actions and thoughts to see if this is striking home. Have we distanced ourselves from a brother or sister? Have we started making derogatory remarks (even little ones count) about them to someone else? Envy may be playing a part in this situation.
You may have a problem with a deacon because you aren’t a deacon. We may think that the Bible class teacher isn’t so smart. A preacher we all know says that sometimes people come up and tell him that he really isn’t doing a very good job as a preacher. He suspects that they think they can do his job much better than he does. He has been known to ask them, "Why don’t we go ask the last six people each of us has baptized about how well we’re doing?" Normally, they leave on that note because it is rare that they have baptized six people. (A word of caution: Don’t try this unless you have baptized six people who weren’t biologically connected to other members of the church. You may not like the answer you get.)
We don’t normally envy the preacher (Who wants a job with 20 bosses?) unless we fancy ourselves preachers. An elder I know said, "We’ve got 10 or 12 men who think they can preach and two who actually can." The brethren all know this and tell the elder, but they are kind (?) to those trying to take the preacher’s place (I do not refer here to those who want to learn how to preach or to preach better). The Irish talk about having the gift of seeing ourselves as others see us. Jesus beat them to it when he said, “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-4). Now there’s a lesson every one of us needs to remember.
Sometimes we get upset about that rich brother (any other adjective you can think of will probably do right here) and how he thinks he runs the church. Look at it on the good side. Remember, "there hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it" (I Corinthians 10:13). Wouldn’t we be better off if we just prayed for him to use his blessings wisely rather than to envy him? Our problem with envy really arises when it was the kid next door who appeared to be just a little dumber than we were that really made it big. Often, as young people in the church, we associate with those who have the same amount of cash - none. We may be going to school or taking on the job training at the same time. But so often one will far outdistance us as we go through life, and then it’s difficult to keep the old green-eyed monster down. There are some Biblical examples of this, such as Joseph and his coat (Genesis 37:3, 18, 23), Mordecai and Haman (Esther 5:11-13), Daniel and the princes (Daniel 6:3-4), and Jesus and the rulers (John 11:47-48; Matthew 27:17-18)
The next time you congratulate yourself on not envying the Hunt family (the Texas oil billionaires), remember they were never in circumstances like yours. But if you get aggravated the next time the guy at the plant buys a new car and you can’t afford one, remember how envy starts - with someone similar. Most of all, the next time sister Susie (or whatever her name is) comes into services in a nice new dress, pay her a compliment.
Remember, envy really is a sin and look what it led the Jews to do to Jesus (Matthew 27:18). Don’t tear down the work of God to suit yourself. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (I Corinthians 3:16-17).
