Ultimate Self (realizing personal potential)

Begrudging

Some people respond negatively to others’ good fortune. They don’t necessarily criticize or insult but their more subtle negativity can be just as wounding.

You might have won an award, or some money, your team might have won a championship, you get promoted or good marks on a test. You are excited about a new relationship, a planned holiday or a new car. Or you have a great idea, a dream, or ambition. But when you tell people the response of some is not what you hoped for or expected.

There are no congratulations, no interest, and no apparent pleasure in your good fortune. Instead you are faced with a chilly reception, disinterest, indifference, an almost disapproving disregard. The subject is dismissed, or they one-up you with how they did better, have better, or will have. Or they give a backhanded complement, sneer, sarcastically tease, or disparage your news and reduce its importance. Or they make you feel guilty - you have so much and they have so little. Or they try to frighten you by warning that you will have to pay a price for your good luck. Or they warn you of the dangers of getting a ‘big head’ or ‘too big for your boots’.

Whichever way they react, it takes the wind out of your sails and shrivels your enthusiasm. These types of reactions are particularly hurtful when they come from someone we care about and who we assume cares for us. And they are especially damaging to those of us with sensitive natures. Such negativity is catching and can discourage us, leave us feeling dismayed and dispirited, isolated, rejected, diminished and slighted.

So what is going on here? This type of negative response is a sign of begrudging and envy. If schadenfreude is the malicious enjoyment of others’ misfortune then begrudging is resentment and envy of another’s possessions or good fortune. Both begrudging and envy involve a degree of hostility and malice, of wanting what the other has for the self, of wishing the other the loss of what they have and our possession of it.

So if someone cares for us, why would they feel such negative emotions at our success?

Natural narcissism plays a part.
Or even a degree of abnormal narcissism.
Or they have pigeonholed you and your news clashes with their judgment (which usually means they see you as ‘less’ than them and your good fortune makes them feel ‘less’, a decidedly uncomfortable feeling).
Or they may view you as their equal and fear you will take a step up and leave them behind.
It may be a manifestation of the ‘tall poppy syndrome‘, cutting you down to size to keep you on the same level as them so that they don’t need to feel inadequate.
They may simply be emotionally stingy.
Or they may be so insecure that they feel annihilated by your good fortune.

But whatever the reason, begrudging responses can damage us. They can stifle us and make us fearful of success. Fearful of rejection. They can make us afraid to grow and develop because then we will provoke envy. They make us feel like it is safer to be ‘little’. We might try to appease the begrudgers by diminishing our good fortune (and so reduce its positive impact on our lives).

If we are honest most of us will have to admit to a bit of begrudging and envy of our own. I have a relative who leads a charmed life. The biggest problem she has is finding matching shoes to go with her new designer handbag. She’s just come home from three months overseas and I admit to a grudging resentment at her good fortune. It’s not so much that she has so much but that she doesn’t deserve it. She is a selfish and shallow person with little concern for others. She has a friend who recently developed a brain tumour. I asked how her friend was doing but she told me she didn’t know. ‘I don’t take her calls any more’, this relative said ‘because she is so negative and I just don’t want to hear all that’. She has no compassion or empathy for her gravely ill friend of a lifetime.

Unfortunately, life is not fair. The good suffer, the ruthless and unscrupulous prosper. So what do we do? When we feel envy ourselves I think we need to take a philosophical view.

It is not for us to judge who deserves what.
Someone having something we don’t doesn’t make us less.
Cultivating healthy self-love, self-esteem, and self-acceptance means it doesn’t matter what others have.
Decide not to compare ourselves to others, which is after all, like trying to compare apples and oranges.
Self-pity is a negative and self-defeating emotion. Try to banish it.

And if people show signs of envying you:

The best thing to do is avoid them, or don’t tell them. I have a friend whose mouth literally puckers with bitterness whenever any of her circle get something she doesn’t have. So we never tell her when good things happen. She only wants to hear about our failures, although we don’t tell her our troubles either because she gets too much pleasure from them.
Search out generous spirited people to have in your life.
Usually we can divide our friends and family into those who are supportive in times of trouble and those that are willing and able to share our successes. A few people will be supportive through good and bad but many can only handle one. So be selective about who you tell what.

And don’t let the begrudgers spoil things for you or limit you. Their withholding of approval is a powerful form of manipulation and their threatened rejection is aimed at keeping you from getting too far ahead.

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