“It’s in keeping with Nature to show our friends affection and to celebrate their advancement, as if it were our very own. For if we don’t do this, virtue, which is strengthened only exercising our perceptions, will no longer endure in us.”
SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 109.15
When others do well and succeed, we should be happy for them, says Seneca in today’s entry in The Daily Stoic. It should come naturally for us to be thrilled for their personal growth, as his quote above implies.
As author Ryan Holiday points out, however, it doesn’t always. Sometimes our natural tendency is toward jealousy or envy. We resent that others have succeeded, or we feel that their success blocks our own somehow.
Sometimes our reaction is to compare others’ good fortune to our own lives. It’s a mistake, no doubt — but we still do it. And then we feel inadequate. Facebook and social media have exacerbated this worst of our tendencies.
And then the feelings of joy and happiness don’t flow so easily. Instead of being excited for our friends, those feelings get stifled in favor of the negative emotions mentioned above.
Holiday points out that it takes practice, like all other aspects of personal development. We have to consciously and intentionally be happy for the success of others. We have to remind ourselves to “celebrate their advancement, as if it were our very own”, until it comes naturally.
By practicing in this way, our virtue will get stronger, and our light will shine out into a world that sorely needs it.
