SCHADENFREUDE Vs FREUDENFREUDE (THE EMOTIONS)

 

Hello my dear reader 🤗👋

Hope you are doing well 

Today my thoughtfulness and curiosity grew towards two German terms, their meaning and purpose in our life. They are "FREUDENFREUDE" and "SCHADENFREUDE". These two words show the emotion/feeling one has for others.

No wonder that you have rarely came across Freudenfreude as it's not as common as Schadenfreude. Freudenfreude is lesser known than Schadenfreude. The reason behind the more popularity of Schadenfreude is lying in people's interest and their behaviour towards others.  In this post let's go through the meaning, purpose and reasons of using more of Schadenfreude than Freudenfreude in our day to day life.

Both these words are opposite in meaning but they play an important role in our life. They reveal the structure of our society. These words play with our minds and build our personality accordingly. Depending upon your inclination either towards Schadenfreude or towards Freudenfreude, your intentions and behaviour is judged. What kind of person you are can be revealed through these mere words.

Let's begin with the details and  comparison of these two words.

What is Schadenfreude?

Schadenfreude is a German loanword in English which means "taking pleasure in others misfortune". This represents a negative emotion. It is a sudden ,sharp or fleeting moment of malicious joy or satisfaction derived from witnessing the misfortune, downfall, failure or humiliation of another person. 

Schaden - harm/damage

Freude - joy

This negative emotion brings a sense of joy by feeling better about oneself when seeing others in worse conditions. This is quite natural among humans. In today's life scenarios most people are inclined towards this Schadenfreude feeling. Though this emotion is not at all a good basis for building a healthy society, still now and then we can't run away from such emotions. Do you agree with this? 

This has become an ubiquitous trait among people. This shapes the mentality inclined more towards negative patterns of thinking. People who indulge in this emotion could find it difficult to emerge as a good human being. They live an artificial life based on others downfall. Their life is shallow with no solid base. This becomes their habit to find others flaws and never leave a chance to show others how better they are doing. Once this Shadenfreude dominate your mind, it becomes impossible to find a true happiness. A true happiness lies within our own goodness and not in others failure. This really matters and we need to be thoughtful before we completely soak ourselves in the joy of someone else's misfortune. This emotion has the tendency to spoil your social connections,   slowly grows envy within you and leaves you emotionally weak as you always keep searching for the happiness based on others misfortune and failure. 

Common phrases and contexts including Schadenfreude are: 

A pang of Schadenfreude, a hint of Schadenfreude, a wave of Schadenfreude, a case of Schadenfreude, pure Schadenfreude.

These are used in different contexts and are quite prominently used phrases that can be heard in almost every corner of your surroundings. It's time to think why this emotion is getting bigger in everyone's life . Why we have developed such a thought process. This needs to be addressed by each and every individual who really wishes to live a meaningful satisfactory life by keeping good emotions for others and rejoicing whole heartedly in others well being.Those who are seeking real joy will definitely say no to this emotion.

What is Freudenfreude ?

Freudenfreude is also a German language word which means " feeling of joy in another person's joy, success and achievements. It is used in contexts promoting positive psychology, empathy and strong relationship building. Practicing Freudenfreude is linked to improved social connections, reduced envy and better emotional well being. This helps in cultivating important personality traits which enables you to build healthy relationships and friendships too. Freudenfreude is the angelic counterpart of Schadenfreude. This is a positive emotion which when cultivated helps you to have healthy relationships and creates more understanding among people around you. This makes one to see and understand things in a real sense. People who inculcate this emotion have a smooth life, they face lesser troubles as they have good relationship with others around them. Those who cultivate this emotion grows at a higher pace since they present a genuine self and can connect with others easily building strong relationships. Those who enjoy others success and achievements can really be more trusted and build healthier connections and are more open towards others with positive mindset. With this positive emotion one can easily attract new opportunities as they become more confident. When you possess this emotion, people around you become more open and feel comfortable in sharing their joy as they know that you are the one who will celebrate their joy and not envy or feel jealous. Here I must add why few people get isolated, cut themselves off socially. Such people have gone through experiences of Shadenfreude, hence they stop sharing their happiness with others. So it's a beautiful and healthy habit to being able to feel joy in others joy and create a light moment allowing others to celebrate their success and achievements with you. Freudenfreude is the key to building a strong , happy and healthy society where there is no place for envy, jealousy, resentment and any such bitter thoughts. 

How can you cultivate Freudenfreude

Well, it's the joy which comes from seeing others joy. So you can cultivate this by focusing on positive aspects of other people's lives by celebrating their success and achievements. This can be as simple as expressing genuine happiness for a friend when they accomplish something or sharing in their excitement when something good happens to them. Being empathetic towards others creates deeper connections and help you to feel more joyful with them. Additionally, you inculcate kindness and practicing gratitude towards others as well as in your own life would help to develop a more positive outlook and increase your ability to feel joy for others. Celebrating others achievements wholeheartedly and sharing it with others would help in spreading the real joy around you. Saying kind and supportive things to the one going through difficult phase of life would definitely bring joy and happiness in their life. Having genuine feeling of joy and happiness for people who really cares for you by showing them gratitude and respect. Practicing Freudenfreude means sharing the joy, which further amplifies it to a higher level.

Freudenfreude can also be shown by letting others know how important they are for you. Always help others to boost their morale by saying positive things and spread joy and happiness among them and hence in your life too. Cultivating Freudenfreude means cultivating a more trusted, healthy and safe society. We should teach our children how to feel happy in others happiness and success by showing them our examples. When we as an adult start doing so, kids will automatically catch these beautiful positive emotions for others and hence they will learn these healthy traits without any extra effort. Setting examples for others around you, this would likely have at least some impact on them to rethink and behave. 

Your "Freudenfreude Feeling" will surely be enough to convert "A pang of Schadenfreude, A Hint of Schadenfreude, A Wave of Schadenfreude, A case of Schadenfreude, Pure Shadenfreude into "Joy In Joy", "To Be Happy With Those Who Are Happy" or "Shared Joy".

Be Happy and feel Happy In Others Happiness 😊 See You In My Next Post 🤗 and please don't forget to share this act of joy in others joy I mean this post with your family and friends 🤗