And so my mother played both parents on my wedding day and performed the duties that every little girl imagines her father will one day, and I pretended not to be hoping that my father would be feeling profound and irreversible regret.
Imagine.
I wanted my dad to be sorry that he missed my high school graduation. I wanted him to see that I was pretty and I wanted him to wonder if Father’s Day, for me, was hard. I wanted him to beg me for mercy, to ask for my forgiveness while being swept away by the floods of remorse, but none of that makes what I did okay.
Now when I look back, I am obliged to wonder if I had succeeded that day in causing him significant shame. Looking back, I am not at all proud of myself for what I did.
Perhaps I had a legitimate bone to pick, but what I failed to consider at the time is that, implicit in the act of extending an invitation is the recognition of a special level of trust that absolutely must be appreciated and handled with care. I believe that I could have picked another time. I believe that I could have found a better way. I believe that true joy or real pleasure can never be experienced when it comes attached as a rider to someone else’s misfortune, discomfort, or pain.
And—I absolutely believe that Schadenfreude is really just an undercover act that we engage in when we are unwilling to make the effort to take the high road. And you?
Something sacred gets compromised every time we choose to allow ourselves to pinch a little pleasure out of someone else’s pain. It’s a counterfeit experience and we usually keep it to ourselves, while—real pleasure and true joy are meant to be shared by those who foster goodwill, in appreciation of the privilege that it is to openly celebrate life.
Related Story: Negative Impact
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