Freudenfreude

Rejoicing in the success of others has had many names across time and cultures. It’s referred to by contemporary social researchers as freudenfreude, inspired by freude, the German word for joy’, while for Buddhists it’s mudita. Regardless of what we call it, relishing the success of others is crucial for strengthening your relationships and for bringing more happiness and contentedness to yout life.

- Nikki Davies

The evolution of the human mind has left us with something both marvellous and complicated. On the one hand, evolution has given us a brain that has enabled us to land on the moon, plumb the depths of the sea and solve many of the universe's secrets. Yet evolution has also left us with duelling qualities that are perhaps not as useful, such as the two essential yet conflicting motivational forces of survival and cooperation.

These two behavioural influences have been important in enabling the survival of our species. We evolved to understand there is safety in numbers, that when we work together, when we care for each other, we ensure our welfare and security. Indeed, our physical and psychological wellbeing is dependent on the need to belong, to feel supported, validated and protected.

Yet we also evolved with our survival instinct completely intact. This crucial impulse is our most powerful motivator, with just about everything we do in service of it, whether we are aware of it or not. And while our "fight or flight" response is our best-known expression of the survival instinct, it is not the only way our need to protect our physical and psychological selves is expressed. Indeed, when we feel our sense of self being threatened, the quality of our relationships can be affected in pursuit of self-preservation.

You would have felt this in that tug in the gut between the joy experienced upon hearing a friend's good news and the twinge of disappointment that we're not experiencing that same good fortune. In fact, when we are with others, while one part of our nature behaves appropriately responding with empathy, the other part operates with a primitive competitiveness that can undermine the authenticity of our relationships.