The story of the piano teacher was told to me by my mother who heard it first from my grandmother. My grandmother admired the piano teacher who recently moved into her small, rural town. My grandmother wasn’t a piano student but she observed the teacher and heard her music, and judged her to be the most beautiful woman in the world, only better; beautiful, independent, and talented. My grandmother’s girlish mind thought “Who could be better; what could be better than being the piano teacher?” Then piano teacher killed herself.

The moral: you never know what’s really going on in a person’s life. Don’t waste your energy envying them. Imagine how wrong things could go if you actually got what you want and had to live in someone else’s shoes? Better to love the life you own.

Envy is natural. When I find myself looking at a life other than my own and thinking “why can’t I have that?” I try to ask the next question “why don’t I have that already?” Usually, the answer to that question is uncomfortable with a tone of personal responsibility. Frankly, most people don’t seem to aspire to pose or answer that question themselves. It’s easier to envy.

I’ll tell my girl the story of the piano teacher when she seems ready to appreciate it. Rather than envy, I would have her sit down at the piano and find her own song. It’s harder than it looks.