IT’S A WIN-WIN

Celebrating the personal victories of other people can bring on more of our own

BY Juli Fraga

When Eugenie George first heard that her friend passed a financial counseling exam, her heart sank. She’d failed the same test weeks earlier, and she needed the credential to advance her career. “My inner child got upset,” recalls George, a financial writer and educator from Philadelphia. But then, instead of stewing, she called her friend. “I told her I failed and admitted I was jealous,” she says. George knew that being upfront would defuse her envy, but she was surprised when it shifted her attitude so she could share her friend’s happiness and experience her own, in turn. “I congratulated her and told her she inspired me,” she says. Finding pleasure in another person’s good fortune is what social scientists call freudenfreude, a term (inspired by freude, the German word for “joy”) that…

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Reader's Digest (Digital) - 1 Issue, July/August 2023

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