Turkish Delight

I don’t really feel happy when good things happen to other people. Haven’t in a while. Fruits of hard work and random pieces of luck are treated with the same amount of disdain when it happens to acquaintances.

Growing up in a setup where the omnipresence of competition is drilled into your head from Kindergarten and your success is constantly measured using the most inane and irrelevant comparisons possible, it is difficult to feel happy for others when they one up you. A more magnanimous man could, maybe, but I couldn’t, especially since I completed my first year in college which would coincide with the derailing of the myth of my academic brilliance.

There have been occasions where I’ve felt genuinely happy – Aswin landing a job in Mahindra, off the top of my head. I remember sending him a rather elaborate congratulatory message on the lines of how he really deserved it,which he proudly showed his mother, only for her to raise an eyebrow at the ‘Cheers!’ which concluded the text.

The reason why I do not feel happy is obvious – because I am not happy with where I am in my life. The fact that what I am is entirely down to what I did and did not do is completely irrelevant here. When I feel that I’ve done justice to myself, I will surely find that what happens to other no longer matter and I will actually be the nice guy I am generally perceived to be.

There is another reason to really feel unbelievably happy for someone else, as much as you would for yourself. When you care for the said someone like hell.

Istanbul FTW.