Dear Alma, I am a musician, consumed by envy

From our agony aunt:

Dear Alma,
I am desperate. I am jealous all of the time, of old friends who get coveted roles, people who get great teaching positions, reviews, basically everything. I am consumed by their success and destroyed by my own meager life. We went to school together, were in the same career circles, but they rise and I just stay the same. It’s not like my lot is bad – I have enough money, a fair amount of recognition, and a steady stream of work. But it’s nothing like seeing them in magazines, recordings. Everywhere. I can’t get away and I am drowning.

Trying to look away

Dear Trying to look away,

Ok. Stop it. Just stop it right there. You are eating yourself alive and probably driving everyone crazy by carrying around that big stinking dark cloud. And it does stink. People can smell it. And it’s not attractive. It’s also not helping your career, by the way.

I would like to feel sorry for you, but you say that your life is good. Money, steady work, and recognition. Can you imagine the small army of people who have their own little dark clouds who are jealously peering into your career, wishing they had half of what you do?

I used to be like you. It’s hard not to, at some point, succumb to the never-ending stream of accolades, appearances, awards that our friends and school chums have racked up. My advice? Break that habit, and break it RIGHT NOW. Next time it rears it’s ugly little head (in like 5 seconds probably) take a deep breath and just turn it off. The more often you do that, the less frequently you will have to deal with it. Just say STOP inside your head. As loudly as you need to. And, also, along the way, how about a break from social media to jump start that process? Talk about a magicians cloud of cultivated success illusions. My oh my.

I can guarantee that the people you are jealous of face the same temptation to be jealous. There is always someone who seems like they are doing better. Except if you are YoYo, I guess. We should ask him. But chances are that it’s a balancing act for them too, all of those successful people. Maybe that role takes them away from their families and friends for three months. I know people who actually missed the birth of their child because they were too afraid to cancel a concert. And that’s just the beginning. Missed birthdays, graduations, before you know it that “successful” person is lonely and alone. Alone on their own birthdays. Alone in sickness. In my book, that’s not a healthy choice. And it’s not successful either.

Recently, I was at a wonderful summer festival. One I had been to before, where I would see old friends and acquaintances, those I wanted to and those I didn’t. And read their gorgeous bios and see how skinny they were.

But guess what? I enjoyed every single second. I jogged by the water. I went to bakeries. I played board games with my kids, who got to come along. I stayed up late with my host, an 85 year old, thrice divorced drinker who opened her amazing house to my family for two weeks. I made dinner for her and her friends. I sometimes skipped the after parties to come back to the house, staying up late after the concerts, drinking on the moon-drenched deck as she told me stories about her ex husbands, her (mis)adventures, her daughter who has premature dementia. She doesn’t know an ounce about music, and she can’t tell from the concerts who is more successful, more talented. It’s just an enjoyable thing to do before a late dinner.

At one of the after-parties, I was sitting around the outside fire pit, drinking a martini which had been made by the host, a retired businessman who had a passion for beekeeping and happened to be a knock-down amateur bartender. I was nestled in a blanket, and sitting next to an older couple, one of which had come out of a terrible year of sickness. On the other side of the pit, a younger performer was loudly listing all of the concerts, then repertoire that they had played that summer, and where. And how they didn’t have to prepare. They just learned it during rehearsals. After the list, this person turned to me and said “tell me what you have been up to”. I said “I took a jog on the beach, I played board games with my kids, I went to the bakery, and I stay up late drinking with my 85 year-old-thrice-divorced hostess”. After a spell, he left the warmth of the circle to find his next audience, and I turned to this older couple. I sat and listened to the story of their year. The illness. How they hadn’t spent this much time together for years. It spun into them reminiscing about their youth, their work schedules which took them away from one another. And how they treasured this time together.

The next morning, I heard that that person was rushed to the emergency room. They are still there, supported in the hospital with a partner who holds their hand 11 hours a day. I will probably never meet this person again. And I probably will meet that other, concert-listing person again. If you had one of those people to be jealous of, who would it be?

I later heard that the person who was listing their summer accomplishments lives in such a small apartment and is having trouble making ends meet. That person is looking for a solid job, in a place that isn’t in a big city. You can never guess a person’s situation from paper or screen or words. I admire the love of the old couple. I admire holding someone’s hand for 11 hours a day. I admire quiet words spoken with truth.

As Yoko Ono once said, “Transform jealousy to admiration, and what you admire will become part of your life.”