Practice 'mitfreude'

Experiencing joy at other people's success

Mitfreude

Most of you would have heard of schadenfreude - a feeling of pleasure derived from someone else’s misfortune. This is the joyful feeling you get when your rival sports team receives a crushing defeat or celebrities who present themselves as untouchable fall from grace.

A lesser-known concept is its opposite - mitfreude (or also freudenfreude) - a feeling of pleasure derived from someone else’s success or joy. To me, mitfreude is a much more noble feeling that we should all strive for.

Practising mitfreude is hard. It requires you to be secure in your abilities and sense of self. Our natural tendency is towards selfishness and it can be difficult to celebrate others’ successes if we feel threatened or intimidated by them.

I noticed this when I was at university and extremely uncertain about what my future held.

For example, I used to be outwardly happy when a friend topped a subject I was doing, or got a job I also applied for, or achieved some great feat in their sporting endeavours.

But there was also a part of me that asked “why not me”, or “you just got lucky” or “you don’t really deserve it”.

Now that I am a bit more comfortable in my own skin, it is much easier for the default reaction to be one of true happiness and celebration. But it still requires some conscious effort to stamp out any nagging feelings of envy or resentment.

The serpent that stings us means to hurt us and rejoices as it does so; the lowest animal can imagine the pain of others. But to imagine the joy of others and to rejoice at it is the highest privilege of the highest animals - Friedrich Nietzsche

Recommendation zone

📖 Tunnel 29 by Helena Merriman - a remarkable story of how a group of young students tunnelled under the Berlin Wall to rescue friends, families and strangers. Overall, a great intro to Cold War history - I was particularly shocked to learn about the practices of the Stasi - the East German secret police that kept their people under almost constant surveillance.

🎙️The Spy Who - a podcast that dives into the story of a particular spy in each season, starting with Dusko Popov - the Serbian spy who inspired Ian Fleming’s James Bond.

One quote to ponder

Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker - Adam Grant