Envy is an ugly and destructive emotion. Most of the time I am free of it. One person, upon reading this post of mine from yesterday asked why I was envious of my friend. So, I went back to re-read my post to see if I did convey envy. I don't think I did. Was it a model of clarity? No and I acknowledge that at the end. I do not envy my friend his success. He has worked very, very hard for it and made sacrifices I would be unwilling to make. Indeed, I turned down a job offer doing criminal fraud prosecutions for the Department of Justice, pretty close to my dream position, because travel would have been a minimum of 50% of the time. That price was too high for me to pay and that sacrifice of never seeing my children was too great to make. He's paying that price every day.
So, no envy here. I instead am using my friend's career as a yard stick to measure my own against and I felt that it comes up a bit short. I think that my friend seems to have more options than I do right now. As I said, I'm feeling a bit trapped at the moment. This happens periodically and probably means that I need a vacation.
Still, there was a job opening I saw yesterday for my wife's skill set in New Zealand and I have to admit that I asked her to apply. . .
Posted by Random Penseur at June 22, 2004 08:26 AM