In the middle of a mostly very content life, I am occasionally assaulted by envy. In one moment I'm fine...contented, happy. And then I witness the prospering in some way of my neighbor and suddenly I feel an insidious resentment that I don't have what they have. It feels unfair, as though I deserve every good gift that anyone else receives, as though I deserve what they have, whether or not they have the good gifts that I've been given. It's a serious case of selfishness and greed and it's distressing how quickly I can go from a state of peace to a state of irritability and negativity.
A certain experience when I was in my late twenties that involved washing clothes with a rub board taught me a lesson, and I look back to that experience over and over when I feel those waves of envy that take a day full of color and life and turn it into a gray drudgery because I don't have what someone else has. The essence of the lesson was to consciously take in the good I've been given and to deliberately let go of the drive to have more. The essence of the lesson was that gratitude is the key to contentment. Deliberate gratitude.
Another person's bounty reminds me that wonderful things can happen at any time to anybody. I will appreciate the many good gifts I've been given.
--Courage to Change
