Envy -- one of the seven deadly sins. That's what I'm going to talk about today (if you'd like a course on another fatal transgression, check out Seth Jayson's dissertation on sloth).

Oh, man, all you new investors out there are so lucky, especially the younger ones: You've got it made. Dow below 10,000 the other day? Are you kidding me? When I began investing six years ago, I was on the cusp of the bubble.

Let's see, what positions did I initiate that fateful year? Well, I bought my first shares of Disney (NYSE:DIS) at a much higher price than they are trading at today -- try $37 versus the current $23 or so. So much for the magic, huh? Sure, through dollar-cost averaging my cost basis is somewhere around $29, and I'll get the sucker down even lower as time goes on, but I do wish I had started with these prices. We'll move on to Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO). Back in '98, I made my pilot buy into the seller of concentrate for $85 (oh, I am having a conniption of grand proportions right about now!). The company has been struggling through the years to grow its case volume sales (as mentioned in a recent W.D. Crotty piece), among other issues. As of this writing, the last trade is below $44. Here again, my cost basis has been reduced to approximately $59, but still, I intellectually salivate at the proposition of just getting into the market now.

And let's talk about mutual funds, specifically the famous one linked to the performance of the Standard & Poor's 500: the Vanguard 500 Index Fund (FUND:VFINX). Here, I am actually in the black, although not necessarily by much. I am pro-index-fund myself for the low costs and steady historical performance, but obviously we here at the Fool have presented bothsides of the argument recently.

I'm not complaining about starting my investing protocols back when prices were higher. Long-term investing doesn't really care about the starting point; what it demands is disciplined dollar-cost averaging into solid blue chips. During these last six years, I had bought Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) high and sold it low because it didn't seem to be doing much of anything (after it fell precipitously, that is) and it didn't pay a dividend when I owned it. Times certainly have changed, haven't they? You lucky new fellows can get Microsoft at a lower absolute valuation and an actual yield that is only bound to become beautifully bloated from here.

Whether it be the indexes or individual stocks, many are valued lower than a few years ago. We're in nausea-inducing seas of volatility right now, but I don't want to hear any whining. If you've got decades till retirement, this is a wonderful era (maybe not as wonderful as the last killing bear market in that regard, but still, it's pretty darn good). Even a stock such as Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG), which has actually behaved relatively well over the last several years, has been knocked down a bit recently; the same could be said for Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ). To get into such quality concerns now is arguably a fortuitous event.

My hats off to those who have made the decision to jump into the market even with all the negative news out there; Ursa Major may seem to be rising, but over the long haul, the bull will win out.

I am so green with envy...

Fool contributor Steven Mallas owns shares in Disney, Coca-Cola, and the Vanguard 500 Index Fund.