Zero-sum

Reading and teaching portions of Paradise Lost for something like the 14th straight semester, I am struck that one of Satan's most contemptible qualities is his unwillingness to see happiness as anything other than a zero-sum game.  If the Son is exalted, it must also be a denigration of Satan.  If Adam and Eve have Paradise, it must have been taken from stuff that was rightly Satan's.

I always ask my students if they know people whose reaction to another person's good news is to be either cynical or envious . . . as if others cannot be happy on their own terms without taking happiness or goods from someone else. 

I wonder how many times I have a similarly contemptible attitude, even though I try to remember to be unselfish.  Actually, I hope it's fewer times than I'm tallying in my head.