This weekend I'm speaking at a theatre in Germany about triathlon. Peak performance in a culture that gave the world 'Schadenfreude'- the pleasure of watching someone else fail. A word so perfectly German they never felt the need to translate it.
It's not just Germans. The Australians call it Tall Poppy Syndrome- cutting down anyone who rises too high. The Scandinavians have the Law of Jante: 'You're not to think you are anything special.' The Dutch say 'don't put your head above ground level.' The Japanese have urayamashii (うらやましい)- envy tinged with admiration, the acknowledgment that you want what someone has while knowing you probably can't have it. Less schadenfreude, more resignation. The Chinese say 幸灾乐祸 (xìng zāi lè huò)- literally 'happiness in disaster and joy in misfortune.' The French, never ones to miss linguistic nuance, distinguish between jalousie (jealousy over what's yours) and envie (wanting what isn't). Germans just cut straight to the feeling itself.
I get it. Being a racer taught me that watching someone else succeed can feel like proof you're failing. I wasn't always happy when competitors did well- only when they weren't threatening me. Someone five minutes back? Great guy, happy for him. Someone five minutes ahead? Suddenly I'm analyzing everything they're doing wrong and wondering what deal they made with the devil.
Social media turned this into a full-time job. Someone is always training more, recovering better, looking stronger. Every scroll reminds you that you're not doing enough. Comparison used to be the thief of joy. Now the thief never stops. Retirement amplified all of this in ways I didn't expect. When you're racing, envy has a channel- you can literally run it out of your system. You see someone crushing intervals and you think, 'Fine, I'll crush them harder tomorrow.' The jealousy fuels the next session, the next race, the next result.
What changed for me- and this took far too long- was what I did with the envy. I could feel the sting of someone else's performance and let it fester. Or I could use it as fuel. Not to beat them necessarily, but to figure out what they knew that I didn't. That shift- from "why them?" to "what can I learn?"- made all the difference. I find it a little more grey in everyday life. Retirement forces a different kind of transformation- from 'what can I learn to beat them?' to 'what can I learn, period?' Not for racing anymore, but for whatever comes next. The dopamine hit of competition is immediate- you either win or you don't. Learning for its own sake? That's slow, uncertain, ego-free work. No podium, no validation, just the daily practice of being interested instead of envious. Some days I nail it. Some days I'm still rage-scrolling Strava wondering why everyone else seems to be having more fun than I am.
This weekend I'll stand on a German stage and talk about performance. But I've crashed enough times- literally and metaphorically- to finally be able to laugh at myself. You need a solid catalog of your own failures before you can talk about not enjoying everyone else's. Even in a theatre full of Germans.
Maybe especially in a theatre full of Germans. Because if there's one thing schadenfreude teaches you, it's this: everyone fails eventually. The only question is whether you're too busy cataloging other people's crashes to notice you're building something worth watching yourself.
Jan.
