In order to live a decent, happy life, you have to have a conscience. That entails various ingredients, but quite a few people who consider themselves to be “nice” never actually look to see if their behavior could be unconscionable.
As someone who has encountered a good deal of envy, jealousy and resentment throughout my life (which always catches me by surprise), I always end up feeling pity towards those who find it necessary to act upon such emotions. It always leaves me untouched and demeans the other person. Manipulation, lying, telling half-truths, using others in plots and schemes — are all tools of people who are weak and insecure and who know they just don’t “have the goods” that others have.
In life, I have seen others be the butt of jealousy and envy perpetrated by lesser individuals who made it their reason for getting up in the morning to take down someone else who was more successful than they were. One famous example was Oren Brown, an internationally-noted singing teacher, who was vigorously pursued by another teacher, a woman who was his peer, who kept him from being invited into ASHA and another prestigious organization because he did not meet her idea of “standards”. She managed to work her way into a position of importance in a national organization but, in the end, very few people were impressed by her work as a voice expert. She was acknowledged only for her administrative duties. Oren, on the other hand, paid her no attention. He just went on doing what he did (brilliantly) and ended up teaching at Juilliard, writing a well-respected book, working with lots of professional singers at the highest levels and garnering esteem and respect from singers, other teachers of singing as well as medical doctors, voice science researchers and speech language pathologists. He took the high road and it worked. The other person who never worked with any high level vocalists, left nothing much behind. Guess who is still remembered?
As I go forward into a new phase of my life and work, I look back at what I have accomplished and know that I have not ever walked on anyone else to get where I am. I have tried to help many people and am always happy to see someone else succeed.
It is pitiable to see people who strive to make themselves look good by trying to tear others down because what they actually accomplish is simply to expose the deep dark mess of their own soul to the rest of the world.
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