How to Deal With Jealous People: 7 Rules From Schopenhauer

How to deal with jealous people, the coworker who can't be happy for you, the friend who quietly downplays everything you do, the relative who is "just joking"? Arthur Schopenhauer wrote about envy without illusions and without preaching. To him it was not a flaw of a few bad people but part of human nature: a vice, because it pushes people toward harm, and a misfortune, because it torments the envious person first. In this video we go through 7 rules for dealing with envious friends, jealous coworkers and people who can't be happy for you, drawn from Schopenhauer's philosophy: 1. Don't put what you have on display: envy is born from comparison. 2. Don't expect everyone to be happy for you: the two or three who truly are, are enough. 3. Don't apologize for your success and don't shrink yourself. 4. Learn the signs someone is jealous of you: envy in disguise as a joke, an "honest opinion" or a cold compliment, and why timing gives it away. 5. Don't fight fire with fire, and don't celebrate their failures: why Schopenhauer saw Schadenfreude as worse than envy. 6. Talk less about your plans: a plan is fragile, a finished thing protects itself. 7. The main rule: don't live for other people's eyes. What a person is, what a person has, and how a person appears to others. We also separate envy from honest criticism (one is about the work, the other is about you), and look at moments from Schopenhauer's own life: the unpaid second edition of his main work in 1844, his correspondence with Johann August Becker, the quiet year in Mannheim, and the honor he declined in 1858. If you're interested in psychology, relationships, stoicism and the philosophy of dealing with difficult people, this is an honest look at how people actually work, with no motivational slogans. Sources: Arthur Schopenhauer, "Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life," in Parerga and Paralipomena (1851) Arthur Schopenhauer, "The World as Will and Representation" (1819; 2nd ed. 1844) Arthur Schopenhauer, "On the Basis of Morality" (1840) Rüdiger Safranski, "Schopenhauer and the Wild Years of Philosophy" (1987) David E. Cartwright, "Schopenhauer: A Biography" (2010) #schopenhauer #envy #jealousy #jealouspeople #enviouspeople #philosophy #stoicism #psychology #relationships #toxicpeople #selfrespect #wisdomoflife #schadenfreude