From the draft archives: "In which I paraphrase a talk"

The tenth commandment is the most difficult for most people to keep. 

In simplified terms, the first four commandments deal with your relationship with God. The next five cover your relationships with other people. And then we have: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's [anything]." Seems like that last one should fall into the same category as numbers 5-9; it involves relationships with other people, right? But then again, it doesn't really involve anyone but you. If you steal or kill or lie, someone else suffers to some degree. If you covet, no one else even has to know. You can covet all the livelong day and the rest of us will be nary the wiser.

Unfortunately, that crucial difference makes this tenth command far more difficult to follow. There are no "covet police" to stop you, no form of public or private discipline. You may not even realize that you're coveting, so self discipline is difficult. 

This is the case for me.

For the most part, I don't have too much of a problem coveting other people's stuff, like cars and houses and iPhones, but I have always had a nasty tendency toward jealousy of others' successes. 

In school, I wanted top scores. In my piano years, I wanted the toughest pieces. In college, I wanted the top scholarship. I don't think it's wrong to want to become the best you can, but I do think it's wrong to feel angry/covetous/discouraged just because someone else is better than you currently are. Today's church speaker asked, "What do you covet?" and then I asked, "When will I let it go?" It might be a lifelong quest, but I'm determined to conquer this green monster. 


[2014 edit: I wrote this in July 2012, but I didn't post it for whatever unfinished reasons. (It's clearly still a little unfinished, but I'm leaving it.) This post begins my thinking publicly through a topic which is very often on my mind. I'm done letting it stew, and I think writing stuff that other people might read is a good way for me to find my opinion in the middle of all that stewing. Here begins the story of conquering that green monster, I think.]