Should You Apologize for Feeling Good When Bad Things Happen to Other People?

Ever heard of "schadenfreude." This is a German word for the phenomenon too many people are embarrassed to admit.

What does this phenomenon describe? When you're suffering your trials and tribulations and you look in your Steemit timeline and it turns out that somebody who you used to admire or envy had something bad happened to them – maybe their significant other left them, maybe they got fired from their job, or something bad happened to them – and you get this really guilty feel that, "Well, things are not that bad in my life because look at this poor fool."

It's okay, you can admit it. Schadenfreude happens even to the very best of us. In fact, it happens to all of us at some level or another and at some time or another. To deny it would be pointless because everybody knows.

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Imagine two people walking through a forest and they see a bear. One of the guys drops down to tie his shoelaces tighter. The other guy says to his friend, "What are you doing? That bear is so fast, he's going to maul us both to death. You're wasting your time tying your shoes so you can run faster."

The other friend finished tightening his laces and stood back up and, with a straight back, said to the other guy, "I only need to run faster than you." That, my friend, is the essence of shadenfreude.

The point here is that it's very easy to get stuck in schadenfreude and you no longer focus on being happy for yourself. Instead, you're constantly stuck comparing yourself to others.

And as ridiculous as this is, you do it all the time at a certain level.The only thing it does is makes you hate other people because you're always lining up the things that are missing in your life to the things that they have. It delights you when bad things happen to them.

So, the answer is no. We all must live our lives and living includes challenges. Just be grateful your challenges are not as trying today.

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