I have a question. Are we always genuinely happy for someone els every single time we hear something good about them ?
I don’t think any of us will show in public our unhappiness. We all show happiness. We congratulate them. We smile. We tell them how amazing it is that something nice and good has happened to them.
But….. But do we genuinely mean it every single time ?
I don’t need an answer from you, It is an exercise for you. But I will tell you mine. While many times I am genuinely happy I have to admit that there have been times when I just show it. I doubt my genuineness. And I am not proud of it at all. Mostly this feeling is not even conscious. It just feels that way. But something helped me.
If we have a trait that we know is bad and want to change it, the first step is to acknowledge that it exists. Yes I have faked happiness and congratulated people without meaning it.
After that acknowledgment I asked myself two questions:
- Do I feel that they should not be happy?
- Do I feel that something good should not happen to them?
And my answer is a big NO to both these questions.
I have nothing against these people being happy.. I really want others to be happy and I genuinely want good to happen to others. Then why am I feeling this way?
I dug deeper into the feeling and found some interesting things about me. If there is a link to something that I am also pursuing or want, I can fall into this trap.
Even when I feel happy for the other person, I become unhappy or concerned about myself. The culprit was comparison.
Another situation is just plain unhappiness for no valid reason. An uneasiness rather than unhappiness. I just cannot explain. I just don’t feel good and my grin will be hiding some kind of turbulence inside.
As I go down that path I tend to understand more about my uneasiness and I also figure out something very profound.
No one cares if I am uneasy about someone else’s happiness. It only impacts me. If my own feelings impacts me negatively then it is only good for me to find correct it. This forces a different perspective.
My genuineness or lack of it is not known by others. The whole incentive of changing my thinking is that I can get a bit better than who I am.
Nowadays even when I feel a similar uneasiness, I am able to recover and feel better. The solution is to hear, listen and observe what we are feeling. Understand and then course correct. No need to feel guilty. It is a natural feeling..
We are who we are. But we can do something about it. Because… We are also who we can become if we put our heart into it.
The idea is not to project we are the best and perfect but know that our only goal is to improve and feel better. If we feel bad for others, that only effects us and not the other person. They don’t even know it.
Categories: Life and Happiness, Personal Development
Vinod Narayan 
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