Why I am not happy for my friends’ success?
You will read it in: 3 mins
You will learn about: self-reflection, self-exploration, loving yourself, compassion
It all begins with a rush of emotions. We feel incredibly happy for our friends achieving their goals, finding the love of their lives, getting this crazily rare promotion, we are so glad for them to the extent that.. we aren’t. Not always. Not for all successes. But why? Let’s look at it together.
But I wanted it more than them 😩
We all have dreams and sometimes those dreams overlap with our friends’ aspirations. It is all nice and sweet in the beginning when we encourage each other to reach it. However, as soon as somebody else than us achieves the dream first, it leaves us with this lingering feeling of.. anger, jealousy, sadness. It doesn’t feel good. Does that mean that we are a bad friend?
Not at all. It means we are a human being. We are capable of experiencing different feelings - love towards our friend but also jealousy. There is myriad of explanations for such state of mind, which I will leave for qualified psychologists to dwell into. What I will do instead, is to analyse it from a friend’s perspective.
Am I not good enough to deserve it? 🥺
I have been brought up in the world of competition. What I mean by that is from early childhood, I was compared to others. Teachers analysed my grades under the microscope to see whether they were better or worse compared to my fellow classmates. I saw thousands of commercials telling me that only when I have this particular product I can be better than others. Life has been full of comparison and there has always been a ‘winner.’
Such underlying learning about life can make us believe that if our friend achieves the same dream as we have, it means that we can’t achieve it anymore. That we lost in the game. That the dream is out of stock. But it isn’t true. The dream capacity does not end when our friends achieve it.
Rationally we absolutely understand that, but emotionally..? We might be telling ourselves: ‘if only I was as good as them, I would have achieved this dream, but I am.. just average, I will never get it.’ Let me tell you that the capability to achieve your dream, which happens to be the same as one of your friend’s, does not signify your value. But.. your behaviour does.
Don’t be a prick 🌵
No one is expecting a funfair or a parade, a simple ‘congratulations’ does the job. It might sound impossible to be truly happy for your friend at this moment. It is hard, I am with you. Remember, you are not a horrible human being for struggling to express happiness. Take a moment, take some time. Sometimes, I speak with my other close friends in moments like that. It helps.
And you know what? Very often the first time after the announcement of success, when we see (or speak) with that particular friend, is not as emotionally draining as we imagined. It might feel awkward in the beginning (in our head), but then we tend to return to the normality of our friendship. Not always, and that is also okay!
So, imagine, how amazing it will be when you achieve your goal (and you will!) and your friend is right there cheering for you? Or, what is even better, you can learn some great insights from your friend and maybe you can utilise them to reach the same goal but quicker? The possibilities are endless and you have the power to choose them.
