Enviousness

After tutoring my primary school son with his homework, I agreed to bring the Snakes and Ladders board game to the dining table for him to play, given that he had done so well in mathematics. While he was rolling the dice, his younger brother cried out to snatch them. The two boys began fighting over the dice, causing a chaotic scene. "Stop!" I said. "You have to share with each other!"

The next day when I went to work in the city, I bought a bag of colourful wooden dice, each a different colour. When I arrived home, I found the little one waiting for me at the garden gate. "Gift! Gift!" he asked. "No worries, I did buy you a bag of dice in different colours. But you have to share them with your elder brother," I said.

The bigger boy came down merrily upon hearing our conversation. "I want the yellow one!" he yelled. "Yellow! Yellow!" The little brother cried. Then the scene became chaotic again, with the two boys snatching the yellow dice.

I was blamed by both my wife and mother, who thought I shouldn't have bought dice in different colours. "You should either buy the same things or not buy them at all," my mum said. Before I became a father of two boys, I hadn't known that enviousness was so natural for human beings. From fairy tales such as Snow White, we blame it a lot.

Because we blame it too often, we usually underestimate its popularity. We view it as a great sin and refuse to admit its existence within our minds. But in rare situations, we are still brave enough to admit it. I think the problem here is not whether we have an envious mind, but whether we can control our behaviour when we envy others.

In 2013, when Ruan was about to leave QUT, we had a farewell lunch with him in South Bank. I was sitting at a table with some students from Sri Lanka. We discussed many things, including research, war and peace, marriage, religion, and finally, the topic of who was Sridha's best student.

"I know," I said, "Sridha's best student must be Professor Simon Lucey!"

Rajitha shook his head and said, "I'm very sure he thinks you're the best of all."

"Are you kidding?" I said. "Simon Lucey is a renowned professor who worked at CMU before."

"But you cannot compare your current level with Simon Lucey," Rajitha said. "Simon Lucey might not have been as good as you when he was a student. Of course, at the moment he is much better, but you have the potential to overtake him."

"You behaved the best," Ahilan said. "If people didn't bully you, you would have achieved much more research output than what you currently have. I feel guilty that your research progress was slowed down under the collective bullying."

Sabesan then said, "We came here to study almost at the same time. If it weren't for the bullying against you, we should be close friends. But it's hard for us to face you after what we've done." He paused and said, "But it is only because we envied your research capability."

"Yes," Kanes said sadly. "We just cannot accept your progress being that fast. I think we should tell Sridha the truth."

"Yes," all those students said, “we have decided to tell Sridha the truth.”