Last week Tony, Hroth, and Pam all shared overlapping updates on garapa, elm, and ash upcycling progress. Virtually concurrent texts and photos sent by all three. Two of them spoke with me by telephone. All of them sounded 100% in sync. No griping. No grumbling. No blaming. And no complaints, frustrations, or regrets. They were uniformly upbeat and optimistic. They were proud of their own accomplishments, and they were proud of one another. I suspect that they’re finding freudenfreude.
Freud and who?!?!
From Schadenfreude to Freudenfreude
You’re probably already familiar with the idea of schadenfreude, but maybe freudenfreude is new to you. Until recently it was new to me.
Lately the idea has experienced an uptick in usage, likely driven by Brené Brown’s Atlas of the Heart. A book review by Jon M. Sweeney orients us.
Schadenfreude “simply means pleasure or joy derived from someone else’s suffering or misfortune.” And Freudenfreude is its opposite; “it’s the enjoyment of another’s success. It’s also a subset of empathy.” — Jon M. Sweeney (Source: Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown | Review | Spirituality & Practice)
Too often envy (or some similarly all-too-human but lamentable feeling) rumbles to life deep within our psyche when we witness a colleague or friend succeeding, especially if we’re not feeling completely satisfied with our own performance, life, etc. But what if we could alchemize envy into empathy? What if we could train ourselves to feel happiness, satisfaction, and even pride when someone else thrives? We can.
Finding pleasure in another person’s good fortune is what social scientists call “freudenfreude,” a term (inspired by the German word for “joy”) that describes the bliss we feel when someone else succeeds, even if it doesn’t directly involve us. Freudenfreude is like social glue, said Catherine Chambliss, a professor of psychology at Ursinus College. It makes relationships “more intimate and enjoyable.”
Erika Weisz, an empathy researcher and postdoctoral fellow in psychology at Harvard University, said the feeling closely resembles positive empathy — the ability to experience someone else’s positive emotions. A small 2021 study examined positive empathy’s role in daily life and found that it propelled kind acts, like helping others. Sharing in someone else’s joy can also foster resilience, improve life satisfaction and help people cooperate during a conflict. (Source: Juli Fraga, What is Freudenfreude? And How to Cultivate It. – The New York Times)
I’m especially drawn to the possibility of freudenfreude as “social glue” that cultivates collegiality through further kindness, resilience, and cooperation. Actually, collegiality is too limiting, since family and friendship certainly prosper in the presence of this joy-of-joy phenomenon.
Cultivating a sense of freudenfreude ― or letting yourself feel vicarious joy for others ― could benefit your friendships greatly… (Source: Brittany Wong, Huffpost)
But what about the inevitable flush of envy or resentment?
Try to fight back a gnawing, unexpected feeling of jealousy.
[…]
Comparison is a big part of how our brain judges reality, but we can learn to use this process more productively, especially within our friendships.
“Instead of feeling crushed when we discover others have arrived at some desirable destination first, we can be grateful they helped to define the path for us,” Catherine Chambliss said. (Source: Brittany Wong, Huffpost)
Some good news: what goes around comes around. Finding freudenfreude isn’t only a matter of investing yourself in the happiness and success of your peers, it’s also an opportunity to thrive yourself.
Freudenfreude is a two-way street! So be sure to find ways to include your friends in your successes and wins, too.
“When you have a big success, it’s important to embrace your own friends, to honour their value in your life; to recognise their insights and their support,” Shaw [Glenda D. Shaw, author of Better You, Better Friends] says. “By acknowledging your friends, you include them in your success, and that’s what this is all about.” (Source: Brittany Wong, Huffpost)
Cultivating freudenfreude amongst friends and colleagues is not only contributing to the “social glue” of the group, it’s actually an act of community building and collective accomplishment. None of us grow and prosper and succeed in a vacuum. We are intrinsically interdependent. And despite the occasionally onerous responsibilities that come with embracing this reality, the rewards are ample, not just for one, but for all.
“When we feel happy for others, their joy becomes our joy,” said psychologist Marisa Franco, author of “Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make — and Keep — Friends.” To that end, freudenfreude encourages us to look at success as a community achievement.
“No one gets to the top alone, and when we elevate others, we’re often carried up with them,” Dr. Anhalt said. (Source: The New York Times)
Isn’t this just good teamwork and empathy? I suppose if you’re uncomfortable embracing and/or adopting this clunky German-ish (more on that in a moment), then you can cobble together your own equivalent. The important takeaway, as far as I’m concerned, is that noticing and genuinely appreciating and acknowledging and even celebrating your friends’ and teammates’ victories will benefit the entire cohort and initiative.
Experiencing more freudenfreude doesn’t mean you’ll never root against a villain again, but being able to reach for happiness is inherently beneficial. “As delicious as it is to delight in our enemy’s defeats, celebrating our friends’ success — big and small — helps us all triumph in the end,” Dr. Chambliss said. (Source: The New York Times)
Although it’s easy, convenient, and sometimes *really* tempting to cast aspersion and blame less-than-perfect progress on others, there’s no benefit. But there is abundant detriment. If, however, the group can shift their impetus to finding freudenfreude—even when there are setbacks and/or problems emerge—then the path to successive success isn’t far off.
Finding Freudenfreude & Fellowship
Let’s get back to Tony, Hroth, and Pam.
Long story short, Tony’s day-after-day re-milling (sizing and planing) was paying off. He’s been upcycling old, deconstructed garapa decking for adaptive reuse in the icehouse as wall paneling. And he’s been planing rough cut elm and ash lumber that was harvested, milled, and and dried on site over the years, ensuring a uniform thickness so that we can upcycle this homegrown timber (a byproduct of rehabilitating Rosslyn’s fields and forest) into flooring for the icehouse.
Early on Hroth had expressed some misgivings about the quality of the results, the speed of progress, etc. I’m sure Tony probably could have expressed his own aggravations, but he didn’t, nor did I encourage him to. Susan reminds me that I’m an exacting taskmaster, and I have no doubt that my own persnickety perfectionism was amping up expectations and stress throughout the team unnecessarily. Hroth had been endeavoring to mentor Tony, and Tony was giving it his all. The garapa is hard as blazes, and after years of use on the deck, the material has inherited some especially challenging characteristics that gradually had to be figured into the production process by trial and error. And much of the ash and elm had checked, twisted, and cupped while in storage. Reading each board and troubleshooting the best process to transform it into beautiful finish lumber was a challenging proposition to say the least. Further difficulties arose from two different types of planers, and a job site table saw less-than-ideally suited to the task. Add to the mix Pam overseeing Tony and Hroth, endeavoring to ensure tip-top quality control, while Hroth concurrently was juggling myriad other responsibilities in the icehouse. And, if that’s not enough ingredients to cook up a stressful stew, add yours truly to the mix, located just over two thousand miles away in Santa Fe. Absent geographically, but participating virtually via phone, text, email, Trello, etc., my inputs were likely considerably more than all three of them would likely have preferred. So, needless to say, there were inevitably some growing pains.
Strains and setbacks were initially overshadowing progress. It was starting to feel like the proverbial pressure cooker.
But then things started to coalesce. Tony found his groove. Hroth praised Tony. Pam praised Hroth and Tony. And all three let me know how pleased they were with the evolving results and dynamics. Wait… what just happened?!?!
It’s anybody’s guess, but I’d like to think that the team is finding freudenfreude. It’s not the first time. I’ve witnessed it repeatedly. Last summer during the deck rebuild, there were multiple stretches where the team coalesced so harmoniously and so productively that the progress and breathtaking results almost seemed an inevitable byproduct of the chemistry. This fall and winter have demonstrated several similar stretches, but one that stands out was the icehouse foundation collaboration when two teams that had been working on separate, unrelated projects came together and performed skillfully.
So, what’s the takeaway? Shun schadenfreude, and find freudenfreude!
Afterward
Until now I hope that I’ve elevated the prospect of finding freudenfreude—of authentically cultivating and fertilizing freudenfreude—in order to incubate collegiality while growing the collaborative capacity of the cohort. But, as a linguist, I’m unable to bookend this reflection without acknowledging that the word in question, freudenfreude, is manufactured and imperfect. And while I don’t think this diminishes the concept, it’s worth taking a quick dive into a recent critic’s perspective.
There’s only one problem…: “freudenfreude” may be known in sociological jargon (and similar in meaning to the Sanskrit-derived mudita), but it’s not a German word. On both a linguistic level and, one might argue, a cultural one, freudenfreude is Scheiße. — Rebecca Schuman (Source: Source: Slate)
If Ms. Schuman’s not only stolen your bliss but bewildered you with that last phrase, Scheiße is an alternative form of scheisse (which is German for “shit”). Feeling a bit bruised? Perhaps Lady Gaga’s “Scheiße” can fix that for you…
And if that’s not disorienting enough, Ms. Schuman follow’s that blow with another.
None of this… stops “freudenfreude” from sounding downright ridiculous to Germans — or, even better, salacious. One German professor… pointed out that Freudenfreude sounds a lot like an existing compound noun: Freudenhaus. Literally “house of pleasure,” this is actually a word for brothel. — Rebecca Schuman (Source: Source: Slate)
So, there you have it. If you’re in Ms. Schuman’s camp, you may well prefer another way of articulating this positive, beneficial, proactive force for good. No worries. But if you’re less scatologically inclined and comfortable considering a “house of pleasure” to be an unnecessary exit ramp for the present contemplation, then I encourage you to go about finding freudenfreude. Hope it turns out well for you.
