RULE 43

Don’t let the successes of others depress you.

There is a word, borrowed from German, for the pleasure we take in the disappointments and suffering of others: it is schadenfreude. Schadenfreude is the basic principle behind 90 percent of Reality TV.

The opposite is a specific kind of jealousy: being depressed by the good fortune of others. Envy is an ugly emotion and an even worse lifestyle, and it doesn’t get any less ugly when you try to accessorize it as idealism (pretending that your jealousy is a sense of justice or fairness, for example). Unfortunately, it is the common lot of mankind not only to covet your neighbor’s ass (I’m using the term here in the biblical sense), but also to be annoyed and irritable if he has an especially nice one.

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I learned this one afternoon in a hotel room in Washington, D.C. An acquaintance had recently published a quite successful book and was getting both good reviews and healthy sales. As it happened, the author deserved all of this success, because the book was well-done, timely, and an important addition to the public debate. And so I was depressed. A recent book of my own on a similar subject had not been nearly as successful, so watching the other author’s celebrity was a bit like a root canal for my ego. My relative lack of success was in no way caused by the other author, and his success took nothing away from me, but I was nevertheless in a deep funk.

I also had a decision to make. As it turned out, he was having a book-signing party at a local Washington bookstore that evening. Should I go? The question made as much sense as: how would I like a hot, sharp stick poked in my eye?

But I thought about it.

Youth has its passion, but age has its bitterness, and, frankly, I didn’t like the way it felt. First of all, it was pointless. What good did it do me to be depressed about someone else’s success? It is one thing to be down about your own failure (although you shouldn’t dwell on it), but what possible reason would you have to wallow in self-pity over someone else’s good fortune? Wallowing didn’t inspire me, it didn’t change the sales figures for his book or mine; it did nothing but ruin my day and make me bitter, and bitterness has the double disadvantage of being both ugly and self-defeating. Did I really want to be that kind of a person? Worse yet, this could easily become a habit, because almost no one goes through life without having to deal with people who are more successful.

Sooner or later, you will have to deal with a sibling, a friend, or an acquaintance who makes the team when you don’t, is named valedictorian, wins a tournament, gets a higher SAT score, dates a hotter girl or boy, gets into a better college, gets a better job, or buys a more expensive car or a better house, than you. Your reaction to all of this good fortune won’t have the slightest effect on her or his success, but it will have a great deal to do with what a kind of a person you will become.

As I sat in the hotel room, I realized that I had a decision to make right there, and not just about whether I would go to the book signing. I had to decide whether I was going to be the sort of permanently small person who resents the successes of others. I could not control either this other author’s sales or my own, but I could control how I reacted. I chose to get over it.

That night, I went to the signing, congratulated the author, shook his hand, and felt great about it. Life being what it is, there have been times when I’ve been tempted to be annoyed about someone else’s good news, but I’ve frequently thought back on that afternoon.

Deciding not to let the successes of others bother you will mean you’ll have one less annoyance to carry around; and like the decision not to join the ranks of the easily offended, it’s actually quite liberating. The people with tight little bitter smiles and roiling intestines make up a club that you don’t want to join.

This is also important in selecting friends. If you have any friends who resent your successes, you should recognize this obvious fact: they aren’t really your friends in any sense of the word. (See the next rule.)