I’ve been reading a book the past couple of weeks entitled A Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs. In the book, a 30ish white guy from New York attempts to live a whole year by every strict rule found in the Bible. While not meant to be secular or religious, it is a fairly enlightening journey into both the Bible’s beautiful and/or insane declarations. One of the commandments Jacobs finds the most difficult to obey is the one against coveting:
Deuteronomy 5:21:
Neither shall you covet your neighbor’s wife. Neither shall you desire your neighbor’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.
Interestingly enough, while reading this book I started to look at the things I covet and how much pain disobeying this commandment has caused me. I believe my whole life (well, maybe not so much through years 0-5) I have had a severe problem with coveting. I definitely believe my adult life has been one gigantic coveting party. I want everything anyone else has; and have an inability to appreciate anything about my own life. I am jealous of how much money you make, how hot your girlfriend/wife is, how much you can drink, how many slaves you have, your ox and your donkey. I believe that perhaps if I can stop the bleeding from my giant coveting aorta, then maybe I can live a happy and contented life.
I therefore have made a New Year’s Resolution to control my coveting. I would say to eliminate it, but failing at that sort of cold turkey approach would only make me jealous of people that actually can quit like that. Therefore I resolve:
To be free of the consumerist wantonness that leads to me getting into debt,
To be free of desiring all sorts of single or taken women,
To be free of wanting my cake and eating it too,
To finally be free of all types of jealous and general coveting activities.
In the past few days I have tried to cut down on my coveting and I have to say that although it is hard, it really isn’t quite as difficult as I though it would be. Of course it has only been a few days, but there is something about denying your urges that gives you a sort of moral high. We will see how this goes, but hey, doesn’t hurt to try right? I’m not even jealous that someone else tried this before me and wrote a book about it, not even a little bit...ish. See, it's working all ready! HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!
