Taking pleasure in others’ failure
In March 1894 Jules Renard wrote in his journal that “in order to be truly successful it is necessary, first, that one get there oneself, next, that others do not.” In May, he refined this thought a bit: “It is not enough to be happy: it is also necessary that others not be.”
Both quotes bring to mind one attributed to Gore Vidal: “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.”
It is easy to imagine Vidal coming upon Renard’s journal, adapting the Frenchman’s thought, and palming it off as his own. It is certainly easy to see why the mean-spirited Vidal would have taken to the sentiment.
But I sense a slight difference between Renard’s and Vidal’s outlooks. I think Renard was being merely grimly realistic about himself, whereas there is a kind of gleefulness in Vidal’s take. Renard may have felt that way, but I doubt if he was proud of it.
The problem with such a view, of course, is that it makes your success dependent upon what happens to others. Specifically, it renders your satisfaction proportional to their disappointment.
The only success worth having is success on your own terms. Though I am fond of quoting Spike Milligan’s quip that “all I ask is the chance to prove that great wealth won’t corrupt me,” great wealth has not in fact exerted enough of a lure for me to do anything in its pursuit. As for fame, that has never held any appeal for me.
My own terms for success will no doubt strike most people as either becomingly modest or uncommonly frivolous: I ended up doing exactly what I decided I wanted to do in high school. Back then, Philadelphia had a newspaper called The Bulletin. The Sunday edition had a modest book section — a couple of pages inside the Entertainment section. But a feature on the book pages was a column called “A Writer’s Diary” written by a Canadian author called Robertson Davies. (Davies was not yet as well-known a novelist as he would become. I was in high school in the ’50s and Fifth Business, probably his most famous novel, didn’t come out until 1970.)
His column was wonderful, written in a style as fluent as the best conversation, filled with all sorts of fascinating information, studded with opinions that always seemed truly meet and just. I read it — I do not exaggerate — religiously. And I thought to myself, “Now that is the job I would like to have — reading books and writing about them in the Sunday paper.”
It is, of course, what I ended up doing. I wrote my first professional review just a few months after I finished college. By 1976 I was writing freelance reviews for the Philadelphia Inquirer. In 1980 I became an Inquirer staffer, then, in 2000, its book editor. I even got that weekly column in the Sunday paper (and now I have a Tuesday one here).
In other words, I did not set out to achieve much, but I did manage to achieve it. Henry Miller says somewhere that a good bit of happiness consists in nothing more than finding a more or less pleasant way of passing the time. Since most of us have to spend the lion’s share of our time earning a living, finding a way to make ends meet doing something you like certainly gets you a leg up on the pursuit of happiness.
It also spares you any need to take pleasure in others’ disappointment.
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Frank, good post, good thoughts … a weekly column by Robertson Davies? That must have been wonderful! I liked Fifth Business … but I enjoyed The Rebel Angels even more … and all of us Brethren of the Brush should bow our heads in respect to his magnificent beard!
Frank, for me, realization that I have been successful sometimes occurs in retrospect. I definitely ‘traded-up’ when I married, even though it was not something I thought about very much before that, devoting most of my time and attention to studies and beer … it just happened … and BOY, am I GLAD it did.
The failure of others, when it comes to marriage, may increase my appreciation of my success, but I take no satisfaction from their failure … and I hope and pray that they may know success someday!
Hi Frank,
I sell cars for a living as you know. There is a very good salesman around these parts, who can do excellent numbers each month. He’s “gifted” as they say. But he is a terror to work with. This usually gets him fired –sooner or later.
After leaving one place, he goes to another, and makes an agreement with the owner, that if in his first month at the store, he doubles the output of the dealership’s top salesman, he will get a $10,000 bonus.
Of course, the owner or the GM, is thinking that he will have an additional 40 or 50 cars sold for the month. Not so. This salesman will rat out anyone who is a good salesman around him, thus ensuring low numbers from the top people already at the store, and himself his $10,000 bonus. It is as if the owner of the store put a $10,000 hit out on his most valuable employees.
These salespeople who see their success tied into other salespeople’s failure, not only rat out the rest of the sales force, the worst thing that can happen to a sales team, but fool the owner and GM for a while into thinking that while the rest of the sale force isn’t doing their jobs, well, it is a darned goof thing they hired that superstar.