Bile and Begrudgery: How to Break Free of Your Own Bullshit
One time I had tea with the Most Annoying Couple on Earth, friends of dear friends of mine. These two never made you feel warm or included, not even on their best days. They were convinced they were the smartest people in any room they walked into.
So far, I was the only person in our circle of friends making a living at writing, and I sometimes felt uneasy about that. My good friends never resented me, but to this couple I was fair game. At one point the girl turned to me and said loudly, “So what, you just sit around being published all day?”
I swallowed my disgust for the sake of social propriety and said, “I write.”
Because I can (and do) write my ass off even as I am sitting on it. Anybody can.
I call people like this Begrudgers. I didn’t mention them in Life Without Envy because I didn’t want to whine about the whiners, but you know what? We need to talk about this. Begrudgery is a vile habit, and if you recognize this tendency in yourself and endeavor to quit, you will be happier and maybe even less prone to physical disease. And yes, you will be doing everyone around you a tremendous favor.
First let’s define begrudgery. Someone actively working at their art who indulges in a spell of dissatisfaction at all that they have not yet accomplished is not a begrudger. For instance, I attended a reading recently and fell into chatting with a first-time novelist who is five or ten years older than I am. She asked how many books I’ve published, and as I answered I could see some of her inner monologue written on her face: she was comparing herself, and feeling inadequate, and yes, there may have been a prickle of irritation at my apparent prolificacy. But it passed, and we carried on with getting to know each other as soft-hearted humans.
That is not begrudgery. That is an understandable expression of envy.
A begrudger may have tried to write a novel once, or composed a song, or applied to art school. They will have offered themselves a litany of justifications for quitting when their efforts weren’t immediately successful.
So now the begrudger engages in sustained gut-polluting resentment. A begrudger takes it into his head that the person he…
