It is 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 by exercising our perceptions, will no longer endure us.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 109.15
It’s important to point out that it’s not just their accomplishments and “winning” that we’re happy for. It’s their happiness, itself.
We are feeling with them. Because they are happy, we are happy.
We can teach ourselves to put aside our not-enough-ness, our jealousy, our less-than attitudes. We can teach ourselves to celebrate the happiness of others simply because they’re happy. We can look out for each other without looking past each other.
Sort of like the opposite of envy or jealousy. A kind of… Social Compersion?
(See y’all tomorrow)