Envy:
Are we incapable of being happy?
We live in a very competitive world.
From the time we are born, and we begin competing with our siblings for Mommy’s attention, we learn that we must always outdo someone else to get what we want.
Then, as teenagers, we find ourselves constantly in direct competition with our classmates, our peers, and even our friends.
Has our need to be the very best blinded us — leaving us incapable of being happy for other’s successes? And are our relationships suffering because of this?
Our parents are the Baby Boomers. We are the Echo Boomers. There were a lot of them, and now there are 72 million of us.
For us, that means more people to compete with.
Ten years ago, it was easier for high school seniors who were applying to schools like Loyola Maryland and the University of Delaware to be accepted. Today, teens who have been competing even harder are being placed on waiting lists, or are rejected from these same schools.
For all we know, those teens may really be smarter than the applicants and college students of 10 years ago.
What we can be sure of is that the present generation has more competition trying to get into the same schools. And because of that, today’s high school students are under intense pressure — not just to be the best that they can be, but to be better than everyone else.
And what happens when we are go up against our friends for the coveted best grade in the class, the top spot in the school, or the full college scholarship? Even worse, what happens when we lose to our friends — when they turn out to have earned the best grade, the top spot, zero tuition payments?
In kindergarten we are taught to be gracious, “good losers,” and to be happy for our friends for all of when their hard work pays off. But, in today’s society, with competition being as strong and fierce as it is, do we even know how to be pleased for others’ accomplishments?
Envy is the second deadly sin.
Now, of course, we all get jealous once in a while: When we were three years old, and our friend had the new Barbie doll we wanted. When we were seven years old, and he or she had a cool new bike we had asked for and not received. When we were 13, and our friends made the first string in basketball while we just sat idle on the bench.
But now it’s more than toys and a top spot on the team. Now it’s college and money.
Have the rules changed, now that the stakes are higher? Has our jealousy gotten in the way of our view of the real picture? Are we taking our desire to be the best too far, and in the end, are we left with nothing but spite and resentment toward the most important people in our lives?
Jealousy can do a lot to people; it can make them think irrationally and act foolishly. Even worse, when we may not be acting kindly and lovingly, we may be acting the way our friends and peers today expect us to act — because, after all, being jealous and acting upon it is so common that sometimes our friends even see it coming.
It is in envy and jealousy that girls can really show their dark side. We definitely get the bad end of this deal — and usually, the rap is completely deserved.
This girl-against-girl sin does actually exist outside the world of “Mean Girls” and “Laguna Beach.” It exists in reality — in school hallways, in the classroom, and online. Girls today give new meaning to the term “drama queen.”
I have one female friend who made the mistake of dating a boy another friend liked. Actually, these girls were not real friends, just your classic “frien-emies.” They were always friendly and civil to one another, but secretly hated one another.
Of course, by “secretly,” I mean everyone knew they hated each other.
Anyway, my friend dated the other girl’s love interest. The other girl became so jealous that she felt it was necessary to take it out on my friend — a typical female revenge tactic. She spread awful, hurtful, and untrue rumors.
Another friend of mine found herself in a situation where a friend of hers became jealous when she earned the spot as featured twirler on the cheerleading squad. The envious girl also decided to send the rumor mill flying: She began telling people that my friend had paid the judges to let her win. Then she began to tell all their mutual friends even more untrue rumors in an attempt to get them on “her side.”
We members of the X Generation definitely have that tendency to get jealous when we don’t get what we want — and because of that, we tend to act a little crazy.
Of course, the counter-act of being envious is to be loving. And really, despite our sometimes being self-involved and vain, one thing this generation does not lack is love — especially when it comes to our friends.
Sometimes, our parents have trouble understanding how much we do care about each other. For the most part, we love our friends unconditionally, because essentially, our world is wrapped up in our friends. Whether we’re doing each other’s makeup, borrowing one another’s clothes, or going to one another’s sports games, we’re always there for each other, supporting one another.
It is in our friends’ darkest hours that we truly shine: We selflessly provide a shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen, proving just how loyal we can really be. After all, our friends are a reflection of who we are. In fact, the only time we don’t support our friends is when we are competing with them.
So, if we love ourselves enough to think we deserve something, we have to love others that much more, when they are the ones who get what we want. We know our friends love us, too. We can take comfort in that.
And we can learn to take pride in our friends’ accomplishments. Then they’ll love us even more.
Kathleen Ryan is the 2004 recipient of the CS&T journalism scholarship. She is a sophomore at St. Joseph’s University.
DORM Dayz
Gracie McGrath
My empty shopping cart
This past Tuesday, along with what seemed to be the rest of the world, I went to Target to do my back-to-school shopping.
Every aisle was bustling with people who just couldn’t fit enough into their shopping carts. Most seemed to be mothers with their children, stocking up on all the things they’ll need during the storm we call the “school year.”
I took one of the big red carts, and began to dodge in and out of the store traffic.
I picked up my developed summer pictures from the photography department, visited the health-and-beauty aisle to pick up shampoo, face wash and soap, and then eagerly continued on down to the store’s “college dorm” section.
I’ve always found back-to-school shopping fun and exciting. I create these fun decorating ideas for my roommates and me, buy school supplies to color code all of my notebooks and folders for my classes, and always find some way to convince my mom that I need some new clothes to start off the new year.
But for some reason, this year’s shopping cart remained nearly empty.
I remember thinking, as I walked alone into the store, that I “just needed to pick up a few things” before I drove myself down to school. It was as though it were an everyday trip to your nearby store. And even though I chose the big red cart, I knew that all I needed was that little basket.
Young men and women paced down the aisles of the college dorm section with their parents as though they were on a mission; heaving lamps, towels, storage towers, electronics, those extra-long twin sheets, and various other “necessities” into their carts.
As I stared at the shelves of dorm goods, I realized that there was not one thing that I needed.
I find it amazing how things change in three years. As I leave to begin my final year at Loyola College, I can’t believe that my parents and I once unloaded three family cars into my little, tiny dorm room in Middle Courtyard — and now I am moving myself into an apartment with a few bags and boxes.
As I stood in the aisle with my empty shopping cart, I remembered how, the summer before my departure for college, my mom and I had marked a day on the calendar for all of our shopping, as if the day were a holiday.
Now, standing there,I couldn’t believe that there was so little that I needed. And, most of all, I couldn’t believe this was the last time that I would be going back to school.
All of these future freshmen loading up their carts were proud, but terrified — just as I had once been.
You create so many expectations of what college is going to be like — and if there is anything that I do regret about what I’ve done at college, it is just that.
As a matter of fact, I believe that expectations disappoint a lot more people in the world than just us college students.
College has a stereotype, and to be blunt, beyond the books and exams, new students expect college to be a time of newly found independence.
Unfortunately, that idea, for many new students, is distorted. I, myself, had that view of what college was going to be. That “new independence” is not really a matter of finally being able to do things for yourself, but of doing the things you never were able to without getting caught by Mom and Dad. I wonder whether we all have to make our own mistakes before we finally learn.
But please, if at all possible, learn from me.
As I moved through the cashier line, watching all of the other students pile onto the conveyor belts what I now see as junk —my own things are now taped up in storage boxes in my basement — I couldn’t help but recall, nostalgically, how naïve I was going off to college, and realize just how much I have grown.
With absolute certainty, I can officially say that I have blossomed as a human being, and no weather can shake me. And I’ve found that I can’t live without my faith, my God, and the love that He has bestowed on me.
My most memorable times at Loyola do not include a shot glass, or a blasting stereo, but the rather brief and fleeting moments in which my increasingly contemplative and quiet mind realizes who I am in this life, and what I stand for.
This coming week, I begin my last first week of school.
I’m finally going to be a senior.
Keeping all of these thoughts in mind, as I share them with you, I’m prepared for the best year yet, as I trust in what I’ve become. And although, this year I left the store with an empty cart, I know I’ll leave Loyola overflowing with knowledge and faith.
Gracie McGrath, a junior at Loyola College in Maryland, is a graduate of Archbishop Carroll High School, Radnor. She is a monthly columnist in The CS&T reporting on college life.