I’ve a number of bad habits. One of the worst perhaps is begrudgery. I hear the radio presenter intone that this week’s winning EuroMillions ticket has been bought in Kilkenny – or wherever – and I immediately bristle: “The jammy so-and-sos”. And I don’t even buy lottery tickets.
I know it’s unreasonable to envy another person’s success. But there’s a moment when I hear of someone else’s good luck – be it a job promotion, a book deal or the awarding of a prize – when I feel a dart of resentment. And it seems like I’m not alone.
Resentment animates much of our political debate today. The provision of refugee accommodation is triggering for some people who are struggling financially. The installation of bike lanes can be triggering for stressed-out motorists. Successful legislators and self-confident reporters – especially if they are women – are triggering for United States president Donald Trump.
This would come as no surprise to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche. He saw “ressentiment” – he used the French version of the word – as a near universal reaction to a loss of power or status.
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But where does this instinct come from? In search of an answer, I turned to Mick O’Connell, UCD associate professor in psychology, for advice. He says “across all the great apes, including humans, status and hierarchy are hugely important in our social grouping. Any success of someone else feels like a loss since status tends to be a zero-sum game.” The assumption is “if my rival is doing well, then I must be doing badly”.
Conversely, says O’Connell, “if other people in my social group are running into difficulties, then this is probably good for me. There’s the famous, and brutal, Gore Vidal quote: ‘It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.’ And higher status from an evolutionary point of view – for, say, ancestral men – meant more access to all the important outcomes: access to mates, to goods, to respect and to power.”
This animal instinct helps to explain the common phenomenon of schadenfreude, or taking pleasure in the misfortune of others.
But are we doomed to be always resentful? Or can we rise above the instincts of the great ape?
Drawing on insights from psychology and philosophy, here is a three-point plan to cultivate what’s known as freudenfreude – the opposite of schadenfreude. The term is inspired by “freude,” the German word for joy, and means taking pleasure in the happiness of others.
- Develop a growth mindset rather than fixed mindset
The idea that we have a choice between two types of mindset is associated with American psychologist Carol Dweck. People with a fixed mindset believe their abilities are set in stone – so success and failure are largely out of their control. People with a growth mindset believe their talents can always be increased by learning and effort.
The theory has been highly influential in education but it has implications also for mental health. People with a fixed mindset feel threatened by other people’s successes. But those with a growth mindset celebrate other people’s wins, and see them as inspiration for their own progress.
- Free yourself from comparisons
The Stoic philosophers of Ancient Greece go a step further and recommend you stop comparing yourself with others entirely – be it for good or ill. To become free as a human being, they argued, you must cease to bothered by praise or criticism.
As Epictetus declared: “It’s not my place in society that makes me well off, but my judgments ... These alone are my own and can’t be taken away.” Such Stoicism, however, is easier said than done.
- Take a walk in nature
A less demanding course of action is recommended by the writer Alain de Botton. In his book Status Anxiety, he describes the “anxiety-reducing” impact of immersing yourself in nature. “There are natural phenomena so large as to make the variations between any two people seem mockingly small,” he writes.
A similar observation is made by social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He is known, among other things, for the hive hypothesis, which explores how levels of individualism vary between species. Bees have a high rate of collectivism or “hiveishness”. But he suggests humans are about “90 per cent chimp, 10 per cent bee”.
This means we are “capable of thinking collectively for the greater group-good occasionally, such as during big social events like sports, politics, music concerts, or national emergencies,” O’Connell points out. “But generally, we’re a fairly individualistic species – looking out for our own benefit, and seeking to outdo others in our immediate environment.”
Haidt argues that you can “flip the hive switch” in certain situations – the outbreak of the Covid pandemic was one dramatic example. A more everyday method is immersing yourself in nature and appreciating its wonder. “Awe acts like a kind of reset button: it makes people forget themselves and their petty concerns,” Haidt writes.
Finally, if you can’t conquer resentment completely, at least try to manage the feeling upwards rather than downwards. Tesla shareholders last month approved a $1 trillion (€856 billion) pay package for Elon Musk over the next ten years. Global inequality is rising as caps on executive pay are lifted, tax avoidance by the superrich is widely facilitated, and regulation of financial services is dismantled.
If you want an outlet for begrudgery start there.
