One of my favourite Times writers today writes about wether envy is good - should we replace scadenfreude with mudita which derives from Pali, an ancient language of India - meaning "to rejoice in the job of others".
He says envy is a good motivator. But perhaps you get better internal contentment from turning things around. If my children have a worse costume at others for school (which isn't hard as the only one I've ever made in over 20 years is a black plastic sack with holes in) we can all be so happy because everyone else will have a better one and those others will be pleased about that. So am liking this mudita idea.
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