Steve Almond, in an introduction to Cheryl Strayed’s stunning advice book (which is so transcendent it should not be called such), Tiny Beautiful Things, writes “…America is dying of loneliness…we, as a people, have bought into the false dream of convenience, and turned away from a deep engagement with our internal lives—those foundations of inconvenient feeling—and toward the frantic enticements of what our friends in the Greed Business call the Free Market.”
I have to admit that I’m absolutely jealous of Cheryl Strayed’s writing in Tiny Beautiful Things. In spare language that shimmers with painful beauty like a Rothko painting, Strayed weaves memoir, aphorism, advice, and poetic psalm together so beautifully that they are utterly breathtaking. Each letter of advice feels a little like a lookout point in a holy place like Yosemite or Yellowstone. You need to pause and take in the view. You want to commit them to heart, quite literally.
Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things is a compilation of Strayed’s advice column, Dear Sugar, which ran in the Rumpus. Strayed wrote these pieces anonymously, and perhaps it was the cloak of anonymity that gave her the freedom to be so bold, so honest, so profound. When I need good advice, I turn to this writing. I’m in awe of it, in thrall of it, and yes, a little–or a lot–jealous of it.
Emotions are highly inconvenient visitors, but none is quite so inconvenient and annoying as jealousy. Jealousy is a close cousin of greed and it arises from a mentality of scarcity.
I find it helpful to understand the nature of a thing or emotion by understanding its meaning. The Oxford English Dictionary defines jealousy as “anxiety for the preservation or well-being of something.” In the realm of love, jealousy is “fear of being supplanted in the affection, or distrust of the fidelity, of a beloved person.” And in the realm of our modern obsession with fame, money, and social media, jealousy is the “fear of losing some good through the rivalry of another; resentment or ill-will toward another on account of advantage or superiority, possible or actual, on his part.”
Jealousy arises when we commodify things that shouldn’t be commodified. We commodify those we love and destroy love. We commodify sex and destroy its generative and regenerative powers. We commodify success and fame and destroy the honest acts of creation, human connection, and the sentiments of altruism that ultimately motivate our striving. So many of us seek approval on social media to connect. Jealousy is the opposite of connection. It says: “all of this must be mine and none of this is yours.” It divides us when the spirit of sharing would connect us.
I’ve struggled with various forms of jealousy and resentment my entire life. I’ve had jealousy for the success of other writers, and this has led me to isolate myself from the very community of writers who could help me grow. I struggled with jealousy when my ex-husband who got to be in graduate school while I had to teach students SAT vocabulary words to pay the bills; this jealousy was not a small part of why my marriage failed. I’ve been cheated on and lied to, and have been so jealous I’ve spent hours in Prospect Park looking to catch my ex-boyfriend in the act (my suspicions were right, but I still shouldn’t have been in Prospect Park that night). From time to time jealousy has literally made me a crazy person.
And so, as I write this review, and find myself confronted with jealousy, it brings me bottomless solace to note that Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things doesn’t omit jealousy. Here are a few gems:
- “Write Like a Motherfucker.” Elissa Bassist wrote to Dear Sugar for advice lamenting the fact that she couldn’t write a book, lamenting that she would never be as good as David Foster Wallace, and miserable because no one would take writing about vaginas seriously. Bassist explained: “I am sick with panic that I cannot—will not—override my limitations, insecurities, jealousies, and ineptitude, to write well, with intelligence and heart and lengthiness.” Strayed’s response to all this is a description of a chalk board she once had in her living room. On it, she wrote a quote by Flannery O’Connor: “The first product of self-knowledge is humility.” There’s a stripe of jealousy that wants the rewards without sacrifice, that wants the acclaim without the risk of looking like an idiot, that wants the finished product without the reality that I’ll need to sit out the next big swell, say no to the beach, and sit on the cold hard floor at 3 a.m., writing and failing, writing some more, and failing, until I don’t fail. Strayed writes: “As my thirtieth birthday approached, I realized that if I truly wanted to write the story I had to tell, I would have to gather everything within me to make it happen. I would have to sit and think of only one thing longer and harder than I thought possible. I would have to suffer. By which I mean work.” To write the book she needed to write, and she had to surrender. When we’re “up too high and down too low” we’re in a place where we don’t get anything done. But we “get the work done on the ground level.” Strayed tells Elissa Bassist that she “will feel insecure and jealous” but the power she gives those feelings is up to her. “Nobody is going to give you a thing. You have to give it to yourself.” How many good things have I denied myself because of my own grandiose ideas of my self-importance? How many beautiful pieces of writing did I fail to write because I was so high up in the clouds and in my own ideas of my own greatness that nothing happened. Strayed writes: “Writing is hard for every last one of us—straight white men included. Coal mining is harder. Do you think miners stand around all day talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? They do not. They simply dig.”
- “Romantic Love is Not a Competitive Sport.” Jealous about hearing about your current lover’s past sexual exploits? Strayed has an answer to this: “You aren’t haunted by your boyfriend’s sexual past. You’re haunted by your own irrational, insecure, jealous feelings, and if you continue to behave in this manner you will eventually push your lover away…I know it’s a kick in the pants to hear that the problem is you, but it’s also fucking fantastic. You are, after all, the only person you can change.” And so, intimacy is formed when we push past the jealousy and search for understanding. Intimacy comes when we let ourselves be gutted, but instead of closing the wound or slinking away like a beast, we let ourselves stay open and curious.
- “We are all Savages Inside.” When Awful Jealous Person writes to Dear Sugar, she explains that she feels like she’s swallowed a mouthful of battery acid whenever someone succeeds in her field. When something good happens to someone else, we have all asked that “why not me” question, explains Sugar. But that feeling and that question should not “rule your life. It means you have work to do.” And what does Sugar say to the “why not me” voice in her head? “You know what I do when I feel jealous. I tell myself to not feel jealous. I shut down the why not me? voice and replace it with one that says don’t be silly instead. It really is that easy…When you feel terrible because someone has gotten something you want, you force yourself to remember how much you have been given.” But more importantly, Sugar urges us to explore the roots of the problem, the parts of ourselves that make us feel entitled, the parts of us that act out of fear of the worst possible outcome rather than hope in the best possible world.
Perhaps jealousy is a kind of warning, the ego’s alarm system pointing out its own deficiencies. Sometimes the failure is within. Try harder. Try again. Sometimes it’s more subtle. It’s a call to gratitude–to remember what we have been given. I’m grateful Strayed wrote Tiny Beautiful Things.
About the Writer
Janice Greenwood is a writer, surfer, and poet. She holds an M.F.A. in poetry and creative writing from Columbia University.