Schaden – what?
Ever felt secretly glad that something bad was happening to somebody else?
Then you are no stranger to schadenfreude!
Schadenfreude – a German word meaning “damage” and “joy”. In other words, it’s that feeling of happiness when somebody bad happens to somebody else.
You’ve felt it. And you very likely felt slightly guilty for feeling it. Congratulations, you have a conscience!
Schadenfreude is a common human experience. Sometimes the person did something to deserve your feelings of schadenfreude. Maybe the person hasn’t been very nice, has a habit of cheating to get ahead, or tends to rub it in other people’s faces when they get ahead.
Please lower the bar! I can’t keep up!
Sometimes though, the root of the feeling is our own insecurity and jealousy. Who wants to have a sibling who succeeds in every possible way while they are just normal? Who really wants to be overshadowed and outshined all the time? You know you should be happy for them and proud of them, but their success only makes your normalness look bad! Let’s be honest: It’s actually much nicer to have a sibling who is failing in a few things – because that lowers the bar for you. It makes it easier for you to look good. And it makes it easier for you to feel better about yourself.
Unfortunately, sometimes you and I are on the receiving end of somebody else’s feelings of schadenfreude. Sometimes we are the ones that other people are a bit jealous of. Sometimes we don’t even realize other people feel that way. We’re busily trying to impress them and thinking they’ll like us so much more if we exceed all of their standards – only to discover that it’s impossible to please them. We can’t seem to make them happy, and we don’t know why.
Remember the episode of Everybody Loves Raymond called “Marie’s Meatballs”? That’s the one where Marie deliberately sabotaged one of the cooking spices that Debra was using to cook a recipe. Why? Because, for all of Marie’s complaining about Debra’s bad cooking, deep down, Marie liked it that way. She liked being the only good cook in the family. She didn’t want Debra to succeed. Marie wanted Debra to fail so that Marie would have less competition.
Sometimes people complain outwardly about things they enjoy inwardly. They found fault because they looked for it, not because they really wanted anything to change.
It’s not you, it’s me.
Poor self-image can be the worst enemy of all. Poor self-image doesn’t just affect the way people feel about themselves. It affects the way they treat everybody else. People with poor self-image don’t like it when their performance doesn’t measure up. They decide whether it measures up or not based on their perception of how well everybody around them is doing. If they think they are doing better than you are, all is well. If they don’t… that doesn’t bode well for how they will feel about you.
If you are the person whose great performance makes that person feel about their performance, they might not like you very much. But don’t expect them to tell you the real reason!
Many studies have been done to show the importance of having a good self-image. People behave in ways that are consistent with their self-image. You’re not going to impress people who have a poor self-image by proving how great you are. It won’t work because the more you prove how great you are, the worse those people feel about themselves.
How do I feel about myself when I’m with you?
The way people feel about themselves when they are around you is the way they will feel about you. Therefore, if you want those people to like you, you have to focus on increasing their own self-image. They need to feel good about themselves when they are around you.
Do you have a relative or friend with whom your relationship seems to get better whenever you are going through a rough patch? When everything is going well, you sense a coldness or a distance that you don’t quite understand. But when something goes bad in your life, inexplicably, the person is suddenly friendly and caring! What just happened? The feelings of schadenfreude may be at work. The problem was never really that she didn’t like you. But she didn’t feel good enough about herself to want to be around you when you appeared to have it all together. But now that you have a big problem, the person feels better about herself, so there’s no reason to be cold and distant.
Before discussing what to do about this problem, let’s stop right here for a word of caution: You can’t control other people. You can’t force people to feel a certain way or to change their self-image. If you make yourself completely responsible for another person’s feelings, you’ll be disappointed and might even become codependent. Other things happen to people that affect their feelings and are not about you. The most you can do is to influence other people’s feelings by the way you treat them.
Our attitudes and the way we treat others very often does influence them. But it’s possible to do everything right and still not bring about the change you were hoping for in another person. Also beware that when change does happen, it takes time. It usually doesn’t happen overnight. So don’t put unreasonable pressure on yourself to do things you may not have the ability to do.
That said, there are things you can do to help rewrite the negative information that has been swirling around inside someone’s mind.
So now what?
Compliment and affirm.
Start positive. You can compliment the person. You can look for good things that the person is doing right and praise them. You can praise them in front of other people. You can tell them what you think they are capable of achieving if they put their mind to it.
Repeat.
And you can do this again, and again, and again. If they have been listening to (or telling themselves) negative things for many years, it’s going to take a while to rewrite the script. But if the person begins to feel good about himself – especially when he is around you – some of those feelings of poor self-image may dissipate and you may see some – or all – of the hostility dissipate as well.
Discuss.
What if that doesn’t work? You could try confronting the problem. You could try discussing the problem with the person who has the bad attitude. Whether or not this is a good approach will depend on how well you know the person and how well they can handle confrontation.
Ignore.
You can also ignore it. You can determine not to let it bother you. This may be the best approach if you don’t know the person very well or if you suspect the person’s mental health may be suffering. If a person is suffering from depression, they may not be able to respond positively. You can read my depression story here.
Take care of yourself.
Whatever approach you decide to take, remember that you are the only person you can control. When someone else wants to bring you down, you don’t have to take the bait. You can take the high road no matter what anybody else is doing. Do the right thing, and you will always find people to support and encourage you.