The lie your envy is telling you

Every time a friend succeeds, do you die a little?

Sharon Salzberg, the eminent meditation teacher, has a great little rap about envy. She says that when someone has something we want, we often tell ourselves that that thing was somehow headed straight toward us—and that the other person swooped in and intercepted it.

That storyline is generally untrue. And it can also be the source of a massive amount of suffering. As the writer Gore Vidal famously said, “whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.”

Back when I was an anchorman, I saw many of my friends get promotions that I wanted. It made me miserable.

But what if there were an alternative?

In Buddhism, there’s a concept called mudita, which is sometimes translated as “sympathetic joy.” In other words, being happy for another person’s happiness. I sometimes call mudita the opposite of schadenfreude.

We all know someone who has natural mudita. They’re the people you like to call when you have good news. Would you rather be that person—or the person marinating in perpetual resentment?

The great thing about Buddhism is that it doesn’t just offer compelling concepts, but it also offers practices to cultivate those ideas in your mind.

Paid subscribers can join me today at 4 PM Eastern for a live video sesh, where I’ll start with a short overview about mudita, guide a ten-minute meditation practice, then take your questions. It’s part of my weeklong series for paid subscribers, called the Buddhist Antidote to Anxiety. If you can’t make it live, we will post the video after.

Monday’s session on the practice of metta (loving-kindness or friendliness) was open to everyone—you can watch it in full here.

Also, don’t forget to check out the pod today. It features one of my favorite guests, the dharma teacher Matthew Brensilver. We don’t talk about mudita, per se, but we do talk about how to alchemize your anger and resentment into something much better. Paid subscribers can listen ad-free here.

In addition to getting the 10% Happier podcast ad-free, paid subs get a cheatsheet for each episode (below, with key takeaways, time-coded highlights, and a transcript), can comment on posts, access subscriber chats, and join our twice-monthly live video sessions, in which I guide a meditation and take questions. Join the party.

Episode cheatsheet

The big takeaway

Matthew Brensilver, Ph.D. brings a nuanced Buddhist perspective to the concepts of self-love, self-hatred, and ethical living. He explores how, even though the self may be an illusion, moving toward self-love through acceptance and compassion unlocks deeper insight, ethical clarity, and peace with our own imperfections and mortality.