#32 : Envy as a Bottleneck & an Interview with my Class Teacher
Life instantly improves as you deal with envy in a better way. I interviewed my high school class teacher, her insights on life will leave you wanting for more. Read to know more.
Hi, hope you are doing fine. I have finished my 5th semester and I am back home for my winter break. Looking forward for 20 days of uninterrupted sleep.
Today’s letter has 2 segments. We start by discussing envy. I call it the ‘Bottle Neck emotion’. You can be good at dealing with all your other emotions, but if you are not good with envy then none of it matters.
The second segment of this letter (my favorite one) are notes on career, parenting, and life from one of my most influential teachers from school. She taught me social studies, but student’s tend to learn beyond textbooks in her lectures. I am sure you will have a lot if insights to take back as well.
Keep your coffee/tea ready and dive in.
Have a good read.
Envy
Envy is a snake that can slyly slip into our lives. We will not realize until it bites us.
Senior students are envious of juniors who are smarter. A manager is envious of a fresher who grabs limelight. When a new baby comes home, the elder sibling is envious because parent’s attention which was singularly on him/her now gets divided. Envy somehow finds a way to enter our lives and bites us hard.
You can be good at dealing with all the other emotions, but if you can not deal with envy, then your emotional intelligence is of no help. The ROI of managing envy is much higher than managing any other emotion. It will cause exponential growth in all spheres of life, and enable better life choices
How To Manage Envy
I have been going to the gym for more than 2 years.
One fine day (8 months into gym), I saw a batchmate curl 20 Kg on each hand. I had come to do pullups, but started doing bicep curls purely out of envy. I excused myself by saying “I too wanted good biceps”.
The habit of getting envious of someone doing better than me stayed with me for a good whole month until I realized I had been doing random unfocused exercises for the last 1 month which had resulted into nothing but inefficiency. I wish I had stuck to my pullups and pushups for the whole month.
The first cure to numb your envy is to have clarity. Knowing the why, what and how behind your action can help you avoid envy. Whatever glimmer of envy would remain converts into inspiration. That is exactly what happened when I restricted myself to 5 exercises in the gym. On the day I walked into do the deadlift, the friend with a 20Kg dumbbell inspired me to do good deadlift, rather than abandon my original plan and copy him.
Clarity cuts through envy beautifully, carving out space for inspiration to grow.
The good side of Envy
But envy is not purely evil. I started going to the gym because I was envious of my room mate who had a good physique. Envy is a good reason to start. But envy can not be your driving force.
When you are envious of someone’s process, you are at an advantage because that stimuli helps you get off your bed to work. It gets you excited to work on something and challenge yourself. But you can not sustain healthily without the love for what you are doing. Envy is a good reason to start. It can be your alternative for not having a bias for action, but passion is the fuel that will ensure you do not burnout.
Notes on Life from Sonia Cherian
With roots from Kerala, and an upbringing in Delhi under an army background, she has remained a dignified teacher with great laurels attached to her name. I will always remember her for distributing answer sheets with the same neutral expression on scoring high or low.
With a degree in economics from St. Stephens, working for 7 years in the corporate, 15 years as a teacher, and a full-time mother of 2 daughters, insights on life from her would leave you wanting for more.
Career
Some things will remain the same in corporate and teaching. Here is one such constant - excellence in your work will always be rewarded. The greatest reward it will give you is satisfaction from within. That is unmatched. While she does not consider herself to be overly ambitious and would be the first person to sit back at home if given a chance, she has taken up the responsibility to execute all her tasks with utmost brilliance.
You need not be the most ambitious, but never discount the benefits of pursuing excellence.
Teaching is demanding, because, unlike other jobs, you can not detach from it once you are home. You are dealing with little kids, who can be deeply influenced by your actions and words. This leaves you in a position of high responsibility, hence you are always thinking about areas of improvement and problems to solve - academic and non academic.
Do not step into teaching as knee-jerk reaction. The bar for entry might seem low, but the perseverance to sustain and do exceedingly well as a teacher requires a level of patience that will not sync with the public perception of how easy this job is.
Work Place Politics
When you work with people, the group dynamics will give way to politics to creep in. Such games do not help you in anyway. Develop the wisdom to stay away, and handle it with diplomacy. The best you can do is at your work, the rest are variables anyway. Politics exist everywhere - corporate, teaching space, and anywhere 3 or more people are involved. Double down on your work, and the rest can be taken care of.
20, 30, 40, 50 - Different stages of the same cycle
At 20, you are overly optimistic about your impact on the world. You deeply believe that you can conquer the world. By the time you are 30, you have added responsibilities that will slow you down. When you are 40, your kids are growing up, and parents older.
Of these 4 different phases, 40 is the trickiest. On one hand your little babies are growing into maturity, and your parents are entering their childhood leaving you with too many fragile egos to handle. You find yourself distant from childhood friends, not just geographically but ideologically too.
Workplace may not be the kindest place because the young incoming workforce seem to be super skilled and envy might seep in.
It can get chaotic. The best you can do is to calm down. Just keeping calm can be a great advantage for riding this tide. The more you make efforts to stay in the present, the easier it is to ride this tide.
At 50 you find some balance, and settle. Now that you have seen most of it, not a lot catches you off guard.
Parenting
Both her daughters have completed their post-graduation and are doing well for themselves. She took a career break for 8 years to take care of the two. The break was helpful because it was instrumental in building a deep bond with the kids. Going back into workforce was not difficult, because excellence in previous projects and a strong academic background in Economics, Computer, and an M.Ed always played in her favor.
Parenting is the most demanding responsibility you can take over. I admire people who can manage motherhood and a job well.
Post children, your role as a parent could overshadows the role of a partner. It is almost inevitable.
Mental Health in Schools
Mental health problems existed earlier as well, but we were not vocal enough. For a long time, people assumed mental health to be an excuse, which built up the ignorance around it. But surely, covid was a reality check for us, and all schools and institutions have started giving the problem it’s due respect and attention.
Today, it is tougher for kids with heavier expectation coupled with enough distraction around them. The 2 years in covid reduced a lot of kids from being the most jolly and social ones to highly anxious and socially uncomfortable.
In covid, trauma became the norm - death, covid detection, suicide rates etc. It had a different impact on everyone and you can not deduce how it affected who, at best you can try to be more understanding and empathetic towards students.
Social media also became an escape or a coping mechanism, and many became dependent on it.
Today, to do well as a teacher, you have to be a good counsellor. Of course not as good as professionals, but good enough to make sure students feel comfortable sharing things with you. It is an unwritten skill every teacher must eventually develop.
For teachers, it helps to have a good support system - family, colleagues, etc.
What is your biggest regret ?
I am more or less happy with what I have done so far. I wish I had not let external expectations and pressure get the better of me and pursued my MBA.
What advice would you give your daughters ?
In career: Do not stress a lot about work, and have a healthy balance. I am happy with how both of you have excelled in your education, and if you want to study further, let nothing stop you from doing that.
Life: Do not develop a habit of putting yourself in the last. Yes, you should be kind and empathetic, and take a step back for someone purely out of empathy, but not at the cost of ignoring your wants and needs. Give importance to yourself.
3 Favorite Quotes of the Week
Once you leave home, you learn, there is no home to go back to.
It is inhuman to have courage for everything. But you can do it scared.
The longer you stay on the wrong train, the more expensive it is to get back home.