--{ the problem with envy }------
Is that it can assert itself even in the weirdest of ways. Me, for
instance, I don't envy money. I couldn't care less about the
higher-paying jobs of my classmates; money is not my personal metric for
success.
But I feel a slight twinge every time I hear of friends and
former classmates from college or grad school (and even one from law
school) get teaching positions. It's weird, because back in grad school,
I never used to think of this as an indicator of success. I wanted to
leave, go out in the world, do something.
And now here I am,
actually arguing against developers and polluters, and it's cool. But I
still feel that twinge when I hear so-and-so is now an associate prof. at
such-and-such university.
I never realized how it was engrained in me, this terrible association of success with being at an educational institution. I say terrible because, like most other metrics of success, it, too, is random and artificial, at least partially. But I guess to some extent it was inevitable; while I was three to seven--probably some of the more important formative years--my mom was a chemistry professor. And hell, I've been through enough school not to have some of its values sink in.
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