Litost: Disappointment disguised as envy

LITOST (Czech)

A few weeks ago, we talked about the German word Torschlusspanik: the feeling that some metaphorical door is closing on your life, and there’s not much time left to do all the things you’d like to do.

For me, this feeling kicks into high gear when I play the comparison game. Maybe it’s a friend who landed a book deal. Or got a big job promotion. Maybe it’s an Instagram influencer who quit her job to sail the world. I start to think: Hey, why didn’t I land a book deal? Why didn’t I get a big promotion? Do I need to quit my job and sail the world?

Comparison creates a sense of urgency, and that urgency translates to envy.

I recently read this essay about envy. Writer Benjamin Schaefer says that when someone else’s success makes him feel a certain way, he tells himself it’s envy because envy is easy to fix. You make a little gratitude list and remind yourself that, hey, life is pretty good. The problem, Schaefer confesses, is that he’s misdiagnosing—it’s not envy at all. What he’s really feeling is disappointment. And disappointment is way more painful to admit.

“Disappointment forces me to recognize that I really wanted something for myself, that I thought my work might be worthy of recognition,”  Schaefer writes, “and within that framework…desire begins to feel threatening, because to want something is to risk disappointment.”

Disappointment is also harder to fix because so much of it is out of your hands. You can do a kick-ass job at work, but you can’t force your boss to give you a promotion. Maybe it’s easier to instead blame our disappointment on those around us by calling it envy.

All of this came to mind when I came across the Czech word litost. The word literally translates to “regret,” but it seems to be a specific type of regret.  In The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, the Czech writer Milan Kundera defines litost using a series of examples: think of a child being forced to take violin lessons. He’s not very good, and his teacher criticizes him harshly. The child feels humiliated and, as a result, continues to play poorly. Stuck in his own litost, the child doesn’t even bother trying to play well. Kundera gives another example: think of a guy swimming with his girlfriend. She swims much better than he does, so the guy becomes pouty and quiet. Eventually, he gets angry with her. Kundera explains:

“Litost is a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one’s own misery…Litost works like a two-stroke engine. Torment is followed by the desire for revenge. The goal of revenge is to make one’s partner look as miserable as oneself.”

The way Kundera describes litost reminds me of the type of disappointment Schaefer describes in his essay: when you get so caught up in your own bullshit that you feel stuck. And instead of dealing with the hard feelings — I’m not great at piano, I’m not a great swimmer, I’m disappointed because I haven’t reached my goals — you tell yourself the problem is something else, or someone else, which only makes you more stuck because you’re not dealing with your true feelings.

If there’s any consolation to be found here, Schaefer argues that disappointment in yourself is an occupational hazard of being human. “I certainly don’t do this practice perfectly, but these days I am willing to befriend my disappointment,” he writes. “To stop stepping over it like it’s not even there.” 

For me, this is a big part of the appeal of untranslatable words. They give us a way to name the feelings we might not be able to fully understand. When we can properly label those feelings, it’s a lot easier to work through them instead of letting getting too lost in our litost.

What’s new?

• I’ve been listening to Lara Ehrlich’s podcast, Writer Mother Monster. As a newish mom, I’ve been struggling to figure out my changing relationship with writing and creativity. It’s useful and validating to hear how other moms are doing it.

• I read Saeed Jones’ powerful new book of essays, Alive at the End of the World.

• I worked on this Hidden Brain episode about the role of information in our everyday lives.

 — Kristin