Symhedonia - word of the week

I love finding new words, although at my age I'm beginning to wonder if I'm losing them faster than I'm finding them, anyway here's the new offering - Symhedonia, yep never heard of it before and what a word! It means sympathetic joy, gaining vicarious pleasure or happiness by celebrating someone else's success.

In my mind's eye it's a kind of 'yeeehar whooping and a hollarin'  in support of someone else's accomplishments. Perhaps they've won an accolade, achieved a significant goal or received an unexpected windfall. This is all about how you respond, I guess replacing a begrudging lucky bastard with a full throated roar of celebration in support of another's success or happiness. 

Now, consider that for a moment, showing sympathetic joy for someone you know and really like is relatively easy, perhaps it's your favourite sports team or a close friend, no problem.  But what about someone you're not close to, a competitor or someone you're not particularly fond of, now how easy is it to say yeah well done, richly deserved, good on you and really mean it?

Enter my new favourite word, symhedonia which i discovered while studying empathetic concern in a CIT course run by Mahia Te Aroha.  Notice the word 'concern' following empathy, that's because empathy by itself does not suggest a positive behaviour or outcome, indeed empathy can be utilised for good or bad, hence the required clarification.

Symhedonia is about concerned empathy for others and a reminder of how bruised egos can so easily get in the way.  How tempting to frame ourselves as the forgotten victim of another's success, overlooked and under appreciated,  short changed and denied of the acknowledgements we deserve. Come on, lets fess-up, what we're really talking about here is those little green monsters envy and jealousy, spiteful twins of bilious hue who inspire resentment when it's not our turn on the dias.

Thank goodness for symhedonia and sympathetic joy, it's simple you just need to start practicing, imagining how good it must feel to be that person, how happy you'd be if it was your best friend, because if you can imagine that it's possible to start extending the edges of those feelings outward towards those who you don't know and even those you may struggle to like.

I'm a contrarian by nature and so counterintuitive approach appeals greatly. Yes it takes effort and practice, but I've started to genuinely enjoy the success of others in this is busy over crowded market of competition and comparison. And the impact has been interesting, I feel far more comfortable about my own modest achievements, when enjoying the success of others. It's seems sympathy isn't just for when people are hurting its for when they're happy. 

Go figure - symhedonia word of the week, the month and the year in my book.