Freudenfreude

Or how to turn everyone into a winner.

It’s likely that you have heard of Schadenfreude- delight in another person's misfortune. There are innocuous examples like cheering when a rival football team fumbles the ball. (I’m looking at you Giants.) Sometimes it is a bit uglier. Like when a friend has a terrible meeting with the literary agent who you covet. (Not that I have ever felt like that. Really.) Over the past few months, lonelier than usual, I started noticing that the source of my joy was from Gotcha moments…and figured I ought to try to intervene before I became an anti-emphatizer. I wanted to practice the opposite of Schadenfreude.

I followed to trail of the internet to a NYTimes article on Freudenfreude…Schadenfreude’s happy opposite. This is behind a paywall. Apologies.

Here is just one paragraph that provides a touch of science

Erika Weisz, an empathy researcher and postdoctoral fellow in psychology at Harvard University, said the feeling closely resembles positive empathy — the ability to experience someone else’s positive emotions. A small 2021 study examined positive empathy’s role in daily life and found that it propelled kind acts, like helping others. Sharing in someone else’s joy can also foster resilience, improve life satisfaction and help people cooperate during a conflict. - Juli Fraga NYTimes 11/25/22

Freudenfreude. I am trying to ignore that fact that Freud is not known to have much gratitude for other folks and instead focus on the Freud in Freud reference. I’m guessing he would like a sexual reference, and if it can’t be about his mother it might as well be about his other great love. Himself.

The practice is to share my own success with others…noting their role in achieving whatever it is. I started looking for it in my regular life. And wouldn’t you know my friends already do it. I am so happy for them. Delighted in fact.

Having tea on my friend’s white couch (which I covet but not in a German word sort of way) we talked about the Meditation retreat that we attended last month. She mentioned that she had earned a 150 day streak using the 10% Happier app to meditate and said something like:

“Thank you for helping me get there. It really meant a lot to me that even after we meditated at the retreat you reminded me to open my app to keep the streak going.”

Then because I just began practicing Freudenfreude I said something like:

“I shouldn’t get credit because you had already opened the app.”

And she was all:

“Yeah but it meant a lot that you were thinking about me and this streak.”

Go Sheryl! And go me for recognizing FnF (may I?) and noticing the pilot light of joy sharing in the 150 days of meditation that she achieved.

I’m going to choose 5 of you each Friday (Freudenfreude Friday if you will allow the alliteration) to call out for the role you play in my achievements.

Roll Credits:

• Sandra - a substack author who comments on my posts and makes me feel like part of a community. She writes about happiness and is also funny. Did you know that could happen? Check her out.Writes A Sassy Little Substack

• Sheryl- See above.

• Steve- Twenty Years. Thank you for appreciating the socks as your twenty year anniversary gift. As we have learned from our daughter socks are never a bad idea. Thank you for making me feel like a whole and lovable being even at my worst.

• Adam- My guide to not mixing Orange Juice with Adderall. Also for helping me notice that losing my keys, scheduling things on top of one another, and stopping writing after 800 words might not signs of laziness and lack of caring but instead might be something to address with a blue pill. Extra credit goes to him for sitting in the bad seat at the table while I wrote 3,000 words in 90 minutes.

• L- For eating the disgusting blueberry mints out of the Ted Lasso tin so I could have a special place for my pills..and for telling me “you got this” as he walked out the door for APUSH and APCalc tests. Believe.

  

There are many more than 5 of you but I don’t want to bore the readers. You!

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Wanna shout out your own peeps? Or give me an example of FnF.