Mudita is one of those untranslatable words I was talking about in issue #35. A word that does not exist in most languages but describes such a foundational aspect of life. The closest term to describe this word in English is Sympathetic Joy. But, another word is also starting to emerge in English and in French: Compersion. A single word to cover this Buddhist concept that means being happy for someone else’s happiness. Finding joy in someone else’s joy, especially when you’re not involved, represents such a high level of wisdom and peace. But, why is being happy for others so challenging? Why can’t I stop myself from feeling envy or jealousy? Why can’t I stop comparing my life to the life of others? It all goes down to us. You can’t be happy for someone else if you can’t experience joy for yourself first. The same principle applies for all kind of feelings. For example, it’s gonna be hard to have a healthy relationship with your partner if you don’t like yourself first and the same will apply to a work relationship with a colleague if you can’t be proud of your work in the first place. We all need to cultivate our own individual joy in order to be able to feel joy for someone else. In her article, Christiane Wolf shares three steps to find the path to Compersion: (1) Relearn how to practice joy for yourself, (2) Make use of your qualities for others, and finally (3) Connect with other people’s joy.
Bentoism is an acronym for ‘’BEyond Near Term Orientation’’. The term has been coined by Yancey Strickler, the cofounder and former CEO of Kickstarter, a crowdfunding platform. It’s been inspired by years of thinking around the role of financial value versus other values. Bentoism offers a new way to think about self-interest in a multi-dimensional way. According to Yancey there are 4 dimensions, The ‘’Now Me’’ that represents what you want and need right now, The ‘’Future Me’’ that represents the considerations and the commitments of your future self, the ‘’Now Us’’ that takes into account the people we rely on and who rely on us, and finally, the ‘’Future Us’’ which is the next generation. The purpose of this mapping is to offer a new frame of reference to better understand our self-interest but also to value what’s not easily measurable and legible. Ian Vanagas is right, we measure what we can measure and so it becomes what matter the most. But, what if what should really matter can’t be consistently measured? Bentoism creates a new structure to help us focus on values other than money (‘’the easiest and most legible way to tell if you are succeeding’’), so we could make better decision for our society as a whole. An idea some may find revolutionary, others utopian, but I believe it has the merit to suggest an inspiring vision of the world.
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1. Mudita
Mudita is one of those untranslatable words I was talking about in issue #35. A word that does not exist in most languages but describes such a foundational aspect of life. The closest term to describe this word in English is Sympathetic Joy. But, another word is also starting to emerge in English and in French: Compersion. A single word to cover this Buddhist concept that means being happy for someone else’s happiness. Finding joy in someone else’s joy, especially when you’re not involved, represents such a high level of wisdom and peace. But, why is being happy for others so challenging? Why can’t I stop myself from feeling envy or jealousy? Why can’t I stop comparing my life to the life of others? It all goes down to us. You can’t be happy for someone else if you can’t experience joy for yourself first. The same principle applies for all kind of feelings. For example, it’s gonna be hard to have a healthy relationship with your partner if you don’t like yourself first and the same will apply to a work relationship with a colleague if you can’t be proud of your work in the first place. We all need to cultivate our own individual joy in order to be able to feel joy for someone else. In her article, Christiane Wolf shares three steps to find the path to Compersion: (1) Relearn how to practice joy for yourself, (2) Make use of your qualities for others, and finally (3) Connect with other people’s joy.