Getting Acquainted with the Green-Eyed Monster

It happened again, dammit.

You spent weeks toiling over what you thought was brilliant prose. You did your research, checked your facts, avoided tempting diversions of all sorts, and produced your very best writing. What happened? Not much. Your work was greeted with apathy and has already been forgotten.

Meanwhile, your colleague Ted blasted something off in between a weekend in Tahoe with his hot new girlfriend and an afternoon watching March Madness basketball on a giant high-def screen in the lodge. His greatest inconvenience was the moment he dropped his cordless mouse into the guacamole while enthusiastically cheering his team on to glory. You'd expect him to turn out a sloppy piece filled with errors and miscalculations, right?

Wrong.

His writing was flawless -- imaginative and enlightening, providing a whole new way to look at the issues, the operatives, the world. His arguments were brilliant, his personal profiles compelling. He did it again, that jerk -- uh, you mean that guy you think of as one of your best friends. Everyone notices. Praise flies his way. You want to be happy for Ted, you really do. But honestly, all you feel is a cold nasty lump of envy.

Which, you know, is all too human. But...what do you do about it? Destroy him.

Ha ha, that's just a little joke, of course. You love Ted, and anyhow, you don't ever have evil thoughts like the one at the end of the last paragraph.

Okay -- maybe you do. Everyone gets jealous of other people's talent, sometimes. We don't think there's any harm in indulging in a brief period of fantasy Ted-bashing. Set your kitchen timer for fifteen minutes and have fun imagining Ted being exposed for plagiarism, for example, or maybe pedophilia. Or pretending his hot new girlfriend broke up with him and ran away with his old girlfriend. Visualize his plane going down in a swirl of flame as he embarks on his international speaking tour.

But when the timer goes off, you have to stop. For one thing, Ted isn't going on an international tour: he works in a cubicle just like you. And yes, he's a smart, good writer, and people notice. Why? Because he's producing good stuff. It's time to get over yourself and start producing some of your own. Maybe you can steal some good ideas from Ted. Maybe you can even run some of your writing by him, since you are, after all, friends. And if you can't get over it, then use these feelings to inspire yourself to keep working at your craft and do a better job next time. (We know someone who wrote a whole novel -- and sold it to a publisher -- because she once wasn't invited to a literary party.) If you feel left out because of Ted's success, maybe it's time to work on yourself and your own inspiration and talents.

Then call Ted, congratulate him, and invite him out for a drink. Maybe on the way home he'll get hit by a truck...