Are we conditioned to not feel happy for others?
“Oh congrats hor your daughter promoted!” “Oh Woah her son got into uni Le”
Calling someone a show off and boasting about their achievements just because she was simply sharing. Apart from our own parents and partner, a majority of people I’ve met are never genuinely happy for the achievements of others. They’ll find ways to make the person paint the person negatively by implying how proud and narcissistic he is.
And what’s worst is that, for some, its perfectly alright for them to share their achievements as long as you’re not doing better than them. Else you’re just trying to show off or downplay their achievements.
Like during Raya, this auntie was telling everyone how her son just graduated Higher Nitec and sharing her son’s plans after.
She went on for about 10 mins on how proud she is and how her hardworking sons’ effort paid off. She then went on to ask this other lady,”Your daughter eh? How? Still in ITE?” and she was like “Nope this year starting uni at NTU” and her proud face changed immediately after.
She then switched topics and never touched on the education bit. And when the family left, she told us “Woah so arrogant just wanna tell people her daughter in university so action for what”
And I’m like ???? you asked, people answered and suddenly she is arrogant?
Why do you think we are this way?
Netizens’ comments
Very competitive society.
I always congrats people when they talk about their achievements, but after they hear about how I earn less than them it become a “Why you not ambitious/ Havent grow up and learn anything” etc etc and it becomes just a session about talking down to me because Im worse off than them.
I don’t talk about my career, my studies w/e. If you ask I will say, but you waste both of our time when you just use that to talk down to me lol. Yeah Im not ambitious as you, so what lol.
At the end of the day its how our society is. Everyone wants to measure and announce they are somewhere on the hierarchy. Money, status, education, whatever. People NEED to let others know how well off they are doing.