When it's not your happiness

"I'm really happy for you."

A lot of people have difficulty saying these words. In fact I know some who would find it easier to stick a needle in their eyeballs than pass along this compliment to a family member or friend.

Say you get a new job. It's just what you have wanted. Good pay. Great business. You tell everyone you know. Many of these people hate their jobs and will think how did you get so lucky? Don't hold your breath waiting for them to tell you they're happy for you.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm finding fewer and fewer people who care about the success of others.

Following guidelines from The Huffington Post website, here are a few scenarios and reasons why we might want to be happy for someone else's good fortune.

Your neighbor gets that dream job while you're working just for a pay check. Disappointment and resentment set in. Instead, allow his success to motivate you to go out and find your dream job.

You're hearing good news from everywhere. Your sister-in-law is pregnant. Your best friend just hit the lottery, and your wife got an excellent report from her doctor. But you feel lousy about yourself. You're bored and restless. Go and celebrate everyone's happy news. Make them your excuse to have a good time and forget yourself for the moment. When the time comes for you to announce your good news, they will want to return the congratulations.

I remember when I called a very good friend of mine to tell him I was getting a divorce from someone who they thought for a long time was a bad match for me. When I called I knew he'd be happy for me and he was, but I didn't know his wife's sister had just died. Despite their grief, they were able to step outside of their lives, take a moment and genuinely feel good for me. Everyone should be blessed with friends like these!

I believe that people who can't be happy for others are dissatisfied with their own lives. We can all gripe about this or that, but if we focus on what's good with us, we can feel good for others. Huffington Post suggests we make a Gratitude List and each day share something we are grateful for with our family or friends. To be honest, we can be jealous of someone else's success, even our wives and husbands' good fortunes, and we need to be aware of why we feel this way.

I've always played and coached sports to win and the hardest thing to do is to feel happy for the opponent who defeats me. I've adopted a philosophy that works and it's a popular slogan that can be applied to anything we do in life when we fail.

"I never lose. I either win or I learn."

With this attitude, I see defeat as a lesson. I'm grateful that my opponent has taught me what I need to know to make myself better. If Mike gets a promotion, but I don't in the company we both work at, I need to figure out what he did to get promoted so I can improve my chances to move up.

When I was younger, I struggled with relationships. Then I learned why my sister and her husband were so much in love despite having the same problems most married couples have. I learned how I should be more giving and how to listen better so I can understand why problems in relationships exist.

Learning instead of losing is a mindset that allows you to feel grateful for the lessons learned when you fail.

You can say, I'm really happy for you" with your actions, too. Send a congratulations card to someone who happily told you her son was accepted to attend a great university. Bring a bottle of champagne home to celebrate the occasion of your wife telling you the short story she wrote has been accepted for publication in a magazine.

Be a positive example for young people. When children see you're not happy for someone else's success, they learn to be self-centered and sore losers.

Remember these words the next time you resent another's good fortune. Someone else out there is happy with less than you have.

For anyone who would like to be a guest columnist, Rich Strack will help you write your idea. Contact him at katehep11@gmail.com.