Can you build your happiness on someone's hurt?
In this question Jeruba wrote, “Some will say ‘You can’t build your happiness on someone else’s hurt,’ and others will say, ‘Yes, you can.’”
What say you? Can you provide examples of where someone did build their happiness on someone else’s hurt? I’m pretty sure everyone could come up with a dozen examples of how you can’t.
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Hmmmmmm….I’m still thinking…...Are we talking about an attempt at happiness, or actual happiness, because you couldn’t achieve actual happiness off another’s hurt, because it’s a generally accepted notion that happiness is also seeing others happy. But the only example I can think of is laying people off for a bigger bonus…..
Ummm… the only example I can think of is if someone who hurt my children were to die, I would feel viciously happy about that. I know, I’m a horrible person.
I have known people who have; for example a couple I know dated when they were young, went their separate ways, married other people, and 20 years later when one divorced, the other immediately divorced so they could be together. Most of the people I talked to in there circle thought it was terribly romantic, but I’ve always wondered about the spouse that was suddenly dumped for a previous girlfriend. I can’t help but wonder what her take on this was, and I noticed that his children were never really integrated into the new family. Granted, I never asked him outright about this, but it always seemed a bit awful to me.
@JilltheTooth That seems like a good example, although I also think it is terribly romantic lol.
I was always extremely happy when the enemy that was trying to kill me was receiving a world of hurt. Even when I had to patch them up after the fact. I am confident most combat soldiers feel the same way.
Slave owners did pretty well out of their slaves.
Never. It does not work that way. If people believe that the source of their happiness is someone elses pain, they are at best dumb and at worst psychotic. There is no evidence that happiness is a zero sum game. There is plenty of evidence that it is not.
By the way, politicians since the beginning have preyed on the sensibilities of the dumb and the psychotic by convincing them that they could be happy by causing others pain.
I would think that orthopedic doctors gain a great deal of happiness from other peoples pain.
I couldn’t live with the guilt.
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