Posts Written By L Parker Brown

How many people do you know to whom you can tell a secret and know that it will never be told? Some people don’t believe that there is a single soul who can not tell a secret. Benjamin Franklin may have been one of the skeptics when he wrote in Poor Richard’s Almanac “Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead.”  

I don’t need to tell you that there are many and various reasons why people keep secrets. Do I?  Consider this, if someone tells you a secret about someone else, it is more likely gossip and the person sharing the confidential information is merely – and eagerly – engaging in a crafty variation of The Telephone Game, frequently referred to as the “Pass-It-On” game.  Because people love to talk about other people’s lives, the person who originally tells you the secret, for added drama may say, “I am only telling this to you. If I hear it again, I will know who it came from.” That veiled threat is to hold you to confidence, so that the spiller of the secret can continue to tell it to others – before you do.  

However, if the secret is about the person who shared it with you, then she obviously expects (while crossing her fingers and toes) that you will keep her secret. Would you? A woman may want to share her secret only with her closet friend, perhaps because she feels the need to discuss it with someone who she believes she can trust to keep it to herself. But we know human nature, and regardless of whether it sounds sexist for me to say what I am about to say I’m saying it – I believe that men keep secrets better than women.  A woman HAS to tell someone.  After all, what is the point of having a secret if you can’t share? It’s okay, you can agree. Even if a woman shares her personal secret with her best friend, chances are nine to one that her best friend will tell her best friend who will tell someone else and before you can say, “Breaking News” the secret is public knowledge. So the bearer of the secret conceals it like a winning poker hand. Maybe one day she will decide to reveal her secret, but even if she does not, hopefully she will not have killed two other people in order to keep it.

The way I see it, there is a little Green-Eyed Monster inside all of us.  It is more ferocious in some than others. At its worst, it has driven some people to do the unthinkable, but even at its best, the crafty beast has been known to cause intense rivalry among friends, co-workers, neighbors, and even within families.

The monster’s alias may not be recognizable to all, but many know it as “jealousy and envy.” It is a dual spirit that makes its vulnerable host covet the possessions, social status or advantages held by another person.  A willing participant in the monster’s game can be easily led to emotional or financial bankruptcy while trying to keep up with the Jones. Some conscientious folk refuse to be lured by old Green-Eyes, but egotists are easy prey and they eagerly play the game.

People are peculiar.  As long as they perceive that you are at the same social or economic level as they are, they have no problem, but as soon as you appear to gain a step up or veer in a different or more positive direction, the monster within the straggler awakens.

Picture a hypothetical family. Intermittently, forty-year old Harvey purchases a pricey new car, moves into a large house, and buys a 42 inch LCD TV. Harvey’s cousin, Abby, around the same age as Harvey refuses be outdone. Although she can barely afford it, she makes sure that their family and mutual friends know that she outdid Harvey, because she bought a more expensive car, a larger house, and a 46 inch Plasma.

Harvey’s younger sister Eloise is promoted to floor manager at the department store where she works, and immediately telephones her favorite Aunt Mabel to share her good fortune. She receives the expected well-wishes and “Congratulations!” from her aunt.  A couple of days later, Aunt Mabel’s crafty daughter, Genevieve , who thrives on one-upmanship, phones Eloise and causally mentions to her, “Oh, by the way, did I tell you that I was promoted to Vice President on my job”?  Need I say that the Green-Eyed Monster also encourages habitual lying?

People may criticize and judge you, but they don’t know what sacrifices you endured to get where you are. Jealousy and envy are not limited to any particular racial group, gender, class, or age. The Green-Eyed Monster runs across the board of humanity like a rabid dog. Self-confident people will refuse to nurture the fiend, but within the psyche of insecure people lays the angst that triggers intense rivalry, causing them to get so wrapped up in competitiveness that they fail to realize that tit-for-tat interplay is an unending contest. There will always be people who have more or less than others. Unless you are mired in the quicksand of self-deprecation and low self-esteem, all you need to do to quash the Green-Eyed Monster is to simply opt out of playing the game.