VOLUME II, SEMESTER 1, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 1

VOLUME II, SEMESTER 1, CHAPTER 3, SECTION 1

Resenting Those Who Have More, the Fork in a Second

The last chapter settled how torment happens. A position arrives and the four gears turn on their own. But it left one thing unanswered. Sit two people behind the same window, the same gears turning, and torment still goes especially hard at two kinds of person. It blocks the well off with a relish, and it treads on the poor with an ease. That is not the force of the position. That is a turn of the heart, and this chapter opens it.

The heart has a name, one that has gone some three thousand years without being said straight out, in eight plain words. Resent those who have more, scorn those who have less. This chapter takes it in three sections. This first one takes the upper half, resenting those who have more. The second takes the lower half, the colder one, scorning those who have less. The third turns the mirror around and holds it up to you. Today, the upper half.

First, get one thing clear. Resentment is not the same as hate, and it pays to keep the two apart. When you hate a man, there is always an account behind it. He cheated you, he hurt you, he took something of yours, he stepped into a place that was yours. Something passed between you. Hate has a cause you can point to.

But this resentment, the kind that rises at the sight of someone doing better than you, has no account at all. You see a person whose life is going better than yours, and that small sourness lifts in your chest. Think it over, though. Has this person wronged you? No. Taken anything from you? No. Gotten one thing over on you? No. You may not even know him. His one and only offense is that he is doing better than you. A line rises, never said out loud because it is too ugly to say. Why should he have it better than me.

Ask yourself honestly. How many times, over a lifetime, has that line, why should he have it better than me, risen quietly in your chest? It needs no reason. It picks no particular target. Whoever is doing well, it turns on them. And that is exactly where resentment parts from hate. Hate goes after whoever wronged me. Resentment goes after whoever is better than me. One has an account. The other has none. And the one with no account is the one that hides the deepest.

Do not think this heart only lives behind a window. It rises, back and forth, through any ordinary day. Walk through one.

Morning. You are scrolling your phone, and an old classmate has posted a picture of the keys to a new house. Your thumb stops. The little tap of approval will not go down.

Late morning. In a meeting, a coworker's proposal gets praised by the boss in front of everyone. Your face keeps the smile, but something inside goes thud. His proposal. It was nothing special.

Noon. Over lunch, the next table is a family laughing together, saying their kid just took some prize. Your ears do not want the news, and a line lifts. Kids these days, all they can do is pass tests.

Afternoon. You are handling business, and a client comes in driving a fine car, well turned out, speaking slow and easy. The paperwork in your hand suddenly has a problem. The one item you would usually wave through, today you hold to the strictest letter.

Evening. Home, and a relative calls to say so and so's son is now pulling in such and such a salary. Your mouth says fine, fine, and after you hang up you do not feel like speaking for a good while.

Five times in a day. Not one of them with a reason. Not one of them a case where the other person wronged you. And still the resentment lifts, time after time. Most of the time, once it lifts, it has nowhere to go, and it stays bottled in the chest. But sit down into a position that carries a scrap of power, and that one time, it gets let out. The materials are suddenly incomplete. The process suddenly must be followed. The supervisor is suddenly not in. So see it plainly. Resenting those who have more runs in every heart. The person behind the window is only the one who happened to get the chance to let it out.

Now set the four gears from the last chapter beside this resentment, and you see why pulling up in a fine car gets you tormented worse, not better. On an ordinary day, the clerk can pretend his own poverty of position is not there. He sits behind the window, one day like the next, and does not dwell on how thin his little patch of power is. Then a man plainly stronger than he is walks up to the window. The fine car sits out front. The good clothes are right there on the hand passing the papers across. And the contrast forms on the spot. That buried poverty of position gets pricked, and will not stay buried.

In that second, the scrap of power in his hand becomes the one and only tool that can pull the contrast back. The lines run in him, never spoken, every one of them turning. You drive a fine car, but today you get through only by me. You make a fortune, but one word from me and you make the trip again. Out there you are somebody, but at this window, you wait on me. The second he blocks a strong man is the second his sense of position runs highest and his satisfaction deepest. Why? Because the gap he just pulled back is the widest. Blocking an ordinary person is only using a bit of power. Blocking a strong one is winning a round. That is why arriving in the fine car and the good clothes gets you tormented more, not less. It is no illusion. It is the four gears and this one resentment, forced together, coming out as they must.

So must resentment rise the moment you see someone better off? It need not. Twenty-five centuries ago Confucius set a fork right at that spot. He said, when you see someone worthier, think of standing level with him, and when you see someone lesser, turn and look inward at yourself. Take the first half, see someone worthier and think of standing level with him, and pull it open. There, at that one second of seeing a person who has more, two roads run.

One road is to reach for his level. How did he do it? What road did he walk? Could I get there too? Think that way, and the contrast turns into fuel for climbing, and the position goes up. The other road is to breed resentment. Why should he have it better? He must have connections. He must have cut some corner. Catch a chance and I will block him. Think that way, and the contrast turns into a piece of malice in the chest, and the position stays exactly where it was, only now with a fresh drop of poison in it.

The fork between the two roads sits in that one second of seeing someone with more. Which road you step onto is the matter of a single second, and it decides whether a person spends a lifetime climbing or rotting in place. And notice how Confucius does it. He does not say you are forbidden to envy. He never gives an order like that. He only sets two roads in front of you. Here is where the one who reaches for the level ends up. Here is where the one who breeds resentment ends up. You look, and you choose. That is the ancestor's way. Lay the fork out, and do not step it for you.

So here is where this section leaves us. Resenting those who have more is a resentment with no account. It needs no reason and picks no target, and it turns on whoever is doing better. It runs in every heart, several times a day, and the small power person is only the one who happens to get the chance to let it out. The second he blocks a strong man, his sense of position runs highest, because the gap pulled back is the widest. And Confucius, at the second of seeing someone worthier, set a fork. Reach for his level, or breed resentment. Choose. That is the ancestor's medicine for this resentment. Not to force it down, but at the fork of that one second, to step onto the other road.

But resenting those who have more is not the coldest half of this heart. When you resent a man, you have at least admitted that he holds something you want, and buried in the resentment is a thread of envy, a face still tilted upward. There is a colder half. The other person holds nothing, is poor, is weak, is no threat to you, and by rights should draw your sympathy. And what rises instead is not sympathy. It is scorn. The next section takes that colder lower half, scorning those who have less. See you there.

Credit to the ancestors; the mistakes are mine: Tiger Lyon.

SECTION 2  Scorning those who have less, the footstool and the fear