What is it that escapes the observation of poets?
What is that act which women are incapable of doing?
What is that which a drunkard will not babble?
What is that which a crow will not eat?

Do not commit yourself to anybody or anything, for that is to be a slave, a slave to every man. . . .

Above all, keep yourself free of commitments and obligations

they are the device of another to get you into his power. . . .

Baltasar Gracian)

Once you step into a fight that is not of your own choosing, you lose all initiative.

The combatants’ interests become your interests; you become their tool.

Learn to control yourself, to restrain your natural tendency to take sides and join the fight.

Most people operate in a whirlpool of emotions, constantly reacting, churning up squabbles and conflicts.

Your self-control and autonomy will only bother and infuriate them.

Slowness to pick up your weapons can be a weapon itself, especially if you let other people exhaust themselves fighting, then take advantage of their exhaustion.

R. Greene

The old statement about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, it’s true, however. And there’s nothing you or I can do about it. Or should. And it does not matter who is in charge, whether conservatives or liberals lead the nation, whether Trump stays on or we get a Democrat President next term.

The reasons behind this phenomena, whether it is momentum to blame for it, bureaucracies, they don’t interest me. You may have read through this recent Wall Street Journal article, Democrats’ Emerging Tax Idea: Look Beyond Income, Target Wealth as well as older articles, for example this one from the L.A. Times, Policies helping the rich get richer and the poor poorer, report says. Or better yet, read this book, The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter (1988).

Income inequality will widen in the coming years and decades.

I firmly believe in that trend, and again, it matters not who comes to govern and what policies they adopt. Good news, bad news ?

I was sitting at a bar recently sipping a drink, and I noticed the drink coaster: Is it better to be rich or stupid ? Interesting choice, I thought. So many people are both…these two are not exclusive…Well, I don’t envy “the rich”, at least those that I know who are richer that I they’re not smarter than me.

The same needs drive the rich and the poor. Well, to some extent. The poor don’t really do much virtue-signalling, perhaps because they worry about living paycheck-to-paycheck too much. Rich folk live for the next excitement, the next experience…what do I live for, I thought.

Same thing. Or better. Better be careful when I get advice from the rich…where they don’t have their livelihoods at stake. Note to self: the *rich* don’t think of themselves rich, they’re just out there making the world a better place. Sort of what I do.

Except I make myself a better man. Well, enough of this non-sense about the rich and the poor and let’s to the meat of it.

“Power isn’t just having choices. Power is being able to decide whether you must choose at all. You can have your husband and little family -and your lover in the tower. And you can extend your authority, and have your word obeyed.” – Edell Vrai

Star Wars: The Lost Tribe of the Sith

via GIPHY

Let’s ask these questions, then:

1. How much control do you have over your choices ?

2. Are your *choices* made by other people ?

3. How important are other people in your life ? (perhaps this question should have come before, at number two), and,

4. Out of your choices and decisions, how often you hit the bullseye, because if you don’t hit it often, you need to become a better shooter. (I refer here to bullseye as the right choice long term).

Now, that is something to work with.

“In his essay “On Envy,” the philosopher Francis Bacon wrote, “Of all other affections, it is the most importune and continual. For of other affections there is occasion given but now and then; and therefore it was well said, ‘Invidia festos dies non agit.’ ” That is, ‘Envy keeps no holidays.'”

Mr. Marino recalls when a “sixtysomething friend boasted that he had recently completed a marathon, I was able to restrain myself from giving rope to the indignant thought, ‘Instead of running miles every day, why don’t you spend some time tutoring disadvantaged kids!'”

This is called projection-evisceration. A lot of people have “envy to the N-th degree”, which is what I would describe the author when he had that thought (kudos for stopping himself from voicing it out loud). As a repetitive thought pattern, envy is very damaging. We need to take control of that poor thinking process.

The best way to deal with envy, like with any (damaging, in this case) loop is to:

1. Break it with an action -if that doesn’t work, then,

2. Realize we don’t control what others do, say and who they are. If that still doesn’t work or if it is not your operating system [it’s called the stoic OS], then,

3. Realize there’s always somebody better or doing better than we are (the superlative connection). If that still doesn’t do it, then,

4. “Judge” others on other metrics (multi-metric comparison). “Yes, he makes more money than I do, BUT I have a better looking girlfriend than he does. Or I am in better shape than he is, etc.”

The best and final rule of envy is one of the  12 Rules of Life of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson and others,

“Always compare yourself to who you were yesterday.”

If you implement a practice of that rule, i.e., apply it quarterly, annually, it should gradually take over the damaging subroutine of comparing yourself to other people.

Not all forms of comparison-thinking are bad

Suppose, for example, you walk into a gym class and a buddy there does more reps, and faster, than you do. Or running better than you do. In such cases, comparing yourself to a better athlete can be useful, and should not be denied. If your goal becomes “I want to do as good or better than he/she”, it’s not harmful. Healthy competition, the adjustment of goals in face of competition is not to be evaded. The whole reason of having a teacher or trainer is to reach higher goals. We don’t call that “envy” we call it training.

After her husband passed away, Lois decided to join the powerlifting community. Now she can deadlift 185 pounds! pic.twitter.com/cLygNzZcxj

— Women's Health (@WomensHealthMag) May 7, 2018

P.S.

Alpha males: I excuse you from reading this post, because it does not apply to you. Alpha males do not suffer from envy. They are pretty much immune to that faulty loop. Alphas are self-contained islands of embodied self-realization. While holding unrealized ambitions and aspirations, alphas just don’t compare themselves to others.