Peter Jacobsen, 64, has made just five trips to Trader Joe’s since the pandemic began. Each time, he acted quickly to limit his potential exposure to the coronavirus.
“I know what I’m getting,” he said. “I don’t buy around, I just take it, pack it and get out of there.”
But on a recent trip to the market in mid-March, he met an older friend who wanted to stop and talk.
She had recently received her second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine and this was her first visit to Trader Joe in a year, she told Jacobsen – another sign of life finally returning to normal.
As she spoke, Jacobsen grew more and more anxious. He was happy for his friend, but at the same time he wondered when he would experience a similar feeling of relief. He also wanted to come home. Is fast.
“I was still in that pandemic mode and she was relaxed,” he said. “The vaccine’s envy is real.”
The pandemic has taught us a lot about ourselves – how to deal with the fear of the unknown, face isolation and respond to the profound injustices that the coronavirus has revealed.
And as more people across the country joyfully announce that they received that long-awaited shot in the arm, many who are still eagerly awaiting their turn are also facing their own feelings of envy.
“I like to say that envy is a universal emotion that no one seems to have,” said Josh Gressel, author of the book “Embracing Envy: Finding the Spiritual Treasure in Our Most Shameful Emotion.” “It is the only emotion that everyone is ashamed to admit.”
And yet, some people are admitting it.
“I am so envious of the vaccine that I wonder if I am really a good person after all”, David Wagoner, from Virginia tweeted Thursday.
Bei Deng, a 24-year-old young woman with no health problems who lives in Koreatown, said she will likely silence friends who post photos displaying their vaccines on social media to keep her anxiety low until she too takes the photo.
And Kat Sambor, 36, an event planner in Echo Park, acknowledged that seeing friends and acquaintances being vaccinated before she was emotionally confused.
“I’m very happy for every person who said he understood – I want everyone to understand, I want my loved ones to be safe, ”she said. “I know that every person who gets vaccinated brings us closer to the end of the pandemic, but at the same time there is that duality with jealousy.”
Californians struggling with vaccine envy can take comfort in the fact that it is a temporary phenomenon. State officials said last week that residents 50 and older will be eligible to receive a vaccine from April 1. All 16 years and older will be eligible from April 15th.
Finally, Jacobsen’s long wait for not knowing when he will be eligible to receive the injection is over. (At 64, he was just a year before qualifying.) But it will still be weeks before full immunity is applied and he will feel safe enough to corner a friend at a Trader Joe to talk about his own newfound freedom.
For good or ill, envy has always been part of the human condition. Each known language has a word for envy. It appears in the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not covet”. Studies show that even capuchin monkeys are envious.
“Envy is the desire for something that someone else has, and it is an unpleasant emotion,” said Christine Harris, a professor of psychology at the University of San Diego who studies negative emotions.
Most experts agree that envy serves an evolutionary purpose – comparing ourselves with others and striving to get the things they own can help us expand and grow.
“If we weren’t jealous, we would wither on the evolutionary vine,” said Richard Smith, a jealousy expert and retired psychology professor who taught at the University of Kentucky.
Still, most of us are ashamed of any envy we feel.
“I think of it as a two-headed monster,” said Harris. “There is a head that wants to devour what the other person has, and the other head wants to bite itself for having such repulsive feelings.”
But Harris encourages those who are scolding themselves for being jealous of the vaccine to take a break.
“Feeling jealous doesn’t make you a bad person,” she said. “It is natural and we are programmed to have those emotions.”
‘Feeling jealous does not make you a bad person.’
Christine Harris, professor of psychology
It is also true that we can feel happiness for someone and, at the same time, envy of that person.
“One of the reasons people feel really dirty for being jealous is because they forget that we are complicated and we can have multiple emotions at the same time,” said Harris. “It happens in friendships all the time. You want what’s best for your best friend, but you also think, ‘Why can’t I have this too?’ ”
Smith said that the degree of envy we feel for others is often regulated by how deserving we perceive them to be.
“If you think someone doesn’t deserve something, naturally you get angry when they receive it,” he said.
This aspect of envy has become the center of attention in recent weeks, as vaccine eligibility has expanded.
It was easy to feel unrestrained happiness when healthcare professionals – who had been bravely exposed to the coronavirus for months – became eligible for the vaccine. Likewise, many felt joy and relief when the elderly were able to obtain protection.
But as younger, seemingly capable people began posting selfies of vaccines on the Internet, envy inevitably raised their heads.
“One of the things that is always said about envy is that you are more likely to envy someone who is similar to you,” said Smith. “So if you see someone similar to you getting the vaccine, your initial reaction is, ‘Why?'”
New York comedian Matt Buechele sums up that feeling in a video he shouts, “Trying to find out how all his friends got the vaccine.”
“What does Kevin do for a living? Is he a nurse? ” he asks. “Is he a software engineer? I do not know. … I missed an eligibility list? “
“Obviously, I’m happy for them,” he continues. “I just … need to learn more about our friends.”
Imagining how an apparently healthy friend received the vaccine is understandable, said Smith. But when a friend you think is healthy and able to stay safe posts exuberantly on Instagram about how he got the vaccine, it may be prudent to book a trial.
Thao Ngo, 23, administers a COVID-19 vaccine to a WesternU Health patient in Pomona.
(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
“There is a lot of invisibility around the disease,” said Dr. Stephanie White, medical director at WesternU Health in Pomona. “We may not know about someone’s recent cancer diagnosis or pregnancy that they are not ready to share.”
White, who runs a vaccination clinic, also said there is no reason to slander those who have had the time and patience to wait outside a clinic to receive a remaining dose.
“It is very difficult to distribute vaccines perfectly,” she said. “In fact, it is impossible.”
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Doses remain viable for only six hours after mixing. So if there are any left over at the end of the day, White would rather give it to people who have waited outside the clinic than throw it in the trash.
“As long as these people are polite and respectful, we are happy that they are there,” said White.
Envy experts say that those who received the vaccine have a role to play in mitigating the pain they can inadvertently cause by sharing their good news.
“I think people are so focused on the joy they are experiencing when they know the lottery has come for them that they forget that many people are still suffering,” said Harris.
And for those who feel guilty for having received a vaccine ahead of time, White suggests celebrating and then leaving to help others. For the first time in a year, you can safely offer to babysit a friend’s child, shop for a neighbor, or volunteer at a Boys & Girls Club.
“If you are a healthy person who luckily, privilege or connection was able to get a vaccine, you are an asset,” said White.
She is happy that you are safe. Now she wants your help. And feel free to take a selfie of that too.