Why We Can't Be Happy For Others

There's one feeling that's common between a child and an adult. As you grow older, it only gets worse. We should have learned to handle it in childhood but we never do. And that's being happy for others. It's almost impossible to feel genuine happiness for someone else. Especially when things aren't going great for you. But even when things are going well, it's hard to be happy for others. Because then you measure their condition against yours. If yours is still relatively better, you can afford to be happy for them. But if it isn't, you burn with envy. Religion has a ready answer for this conundrum: force yourself to be happy for others, and god will take care of you. It's a subtle fear mechanism designed to reprogram your thinking. Behavioural economics tells us that happiness is almost entirely relative. We are, by nature, status-seeking creatures. If you aren't progressing at the same pace as your peers, you feel like you're falling behind in life, even when you're doing perfectly…