The Courage to be Disliked

Highlights

• No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences—the so-called trauma—but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.
• We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those past experiences. Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.
• People are not driven by past causes, but move toward goals that they themselves set
• Why are you rushing for answers? You should arrive at answers on your own, and not rely upon what you get from someone else. Answers from others are nothing more than stopgap measures; they’re of no value.
• To quote Adler again: ‘The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment.’
• At some stage in your life, you chose ‘being unhappy’. It is not because you were born into unhappy circumstances or ended up in an unhappy situation. It’s that you judged ‘being unhappy’ to be good for you.
• Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.
• long as you live that way, in the realm of the possibility of ‘if only such and such were the case’, you will never be able to change.
• He wants to live inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time, or that he could write if he just had the proper environment, and that he really does have the talent for it.
• Adler’s teleology tells us, ‘No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.’ That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life.
• This is the other aspect of the inferiority complex. Those who manifest their inferiority complexes in words or attitudes, who say that ‘A is the situation, so B cannot be done’, are implying that if only it were not for A, I’d be capable and have value.
• But those who make themselves look bigger on borrowed power are essentially living according to other people’s value systems—they are living other people’s lives. This is a point that must be emphasised.
• As Adler clearly indicates, ‘The one who boasts does so only out of a feeling of inferiority.’
• Yes. They use their misfortune to their advantage, and try to control the other party with it. By declaring how unfortunate they are and how much they have suffered, they are trying to worry the people around them (their family and friends, for example), and to restrict their speech and behaviour, and control them. The people I was talking about at the very beginning, who shut themselves up in their rooms, frequently indulge in feelings of superiority that use misfortune to their advantage. So much so that Adler himself pointed out, ‘In our culture weakness can be quite strong and powerful.’
• A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to others, but from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self.
• PHILOSOPHER: In terms of the amount of knowledge and experience, and then the amount of responsibility that can be taken, there are bound to be differences. The child might not be able to tie his shoes properly, or figure out complicated mathematical equations, or be able to take the same degree of responsibility as an adult when problems arise. However, such things shouldn’t have anything to do with human values. My answer is the same. Human beings are all equal, but not the same. YOUTH: Then, are you saying that a child should be treated like a full-grown adult? PHILOSOPHER: No, instead of treating the child like an adult, or like a child, one must treat them like a human being. One interacts with the child with sincerity, as another human being just like oneself.
• When you are challenged to a fight, and you sense that it is a power struggle, step down from the conflict as soon as possible. Do not answer his action with a reaction. That is the only thing we can do.
• The moment one is convinced that ‘I am right’ in an interpersonal relationship, one has already stepped into a power struggle.
• The pursuit of superiority is not something that is carried out through competition with other people.
• YOUTH: So, when you’re hung up on winning and losing, you lose the ability to make the right choices? PHILOSOPHER: Yes. It clouds your judgement, and all you can see is imminent victory or defeat. Then you turn down the wrong path. It’s only when we take away the lenses of competition and winning and losing that we can begin to correct and change ourselves.
• First, there are two objectives for behaviour: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. Then, the objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviours are the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.
• You must not use the power of anger to look away. This is a very important point. Adler never discusses the life tasks or life-lies in terms of good and evil. It is not morals or good and evil that we should be discussing, but the issue of courage.
• Adler was very critical of education by reward and punishment. It leads to mistaken lifestyles in which people think, If no one is going to praise me, I won’t take appropriate action and If no one is going to punish me, I’ll engage in inappropriate actions, too.
• When one seeks recognition from others, and concerns oneself only with how one is judged by others, in the end, one is living other people’s lives.
• In general, all interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other people’s tasks, or having one’s own tasks intruded on. Carrying out the separation of tasks is enough to change one’s interpersonal relationships dramatically.
• You are the only one who can change yourself.
• All you can do with regard to your own life is choose the best path that you believe in. On the other hand, what kind of judgement do other people pass on that choice? That is the task of other people, and is not a matter you can do anything about.
• Now, why are you worried about other people looking at you, anyway? Adlerian psychology has an easy answer. You haven’t done the separation of tasks yet. You assume that even things
• What I should do is face my own tasks in my own life without lying.
• stone is powerless. Once it has begun to roll downhill, it will continue to roll until released from the natural laws of gravity and inertia. But we are not stones. We are beings who are capable of resisting inclination. We can stop our tumbling selves and climb uphill. The desire for recognition is probably a natural desire. So, are you going to keep rolling downhill in order to receive recognition from others? Are you going to wear yourself down like a rolling stone, until everything is smoothed away? When all that is left is a little round ball, would that be ‘the real I’? It cannot be.
• It’s that you are disliked by someone. It is proof that you are exercising your freedom and living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in accordance with your own principles.
• There may be a person who does not think well of you, but that is not your task.
• The courage to be happy also includes the courage to be disliked. When you have gained that courage, your interpersonal relationships will all at once change into things of lightness.
• Certainly, it is true that the mind and the body are separate things, that reason and emotion are different, and that both the conscious mind and the unconscious mind exist. That said, however, when one flies into a rage and shouts at another person, it is ‘I as a whole’ who is choosing to shout. One would never think of emotions that somehow exist independently—unrelated to one’s intentions, as it were—as having produced that shouting voice. When one separates the ‘I’ from ‘emotion’ and thinks, It was the emotion that made me do it, or The emotion got the best of me, and I couldn’t help it, such thinking quickly becomes a life-lie.
• One wishes to be praised by someone. Or conversely, one decides to give praise to someone. This is proof that one is seeing all interpersonal relationships as ‘vertical relationships’. This holds true for you, too: it is because you are living in vertical relationships that you want to be praised. Adlerian psychology refutes all manner of vertical relationships, and proposes that all interpersonal relationships be horizontal relationships.
• They see all interpersonal relations as vertical relationships, and they are afraid of being seen by women as beneath them. That is to say, they have intense, hidden feelings of inferiority.
• If one can build horizontal relationships that are ‘equal but not the same’ for all people, there will no longer be any room for inferiority complexes to emerge.
• Being praised is what leads people to form the belief that they have no ability.
• Being praised essentially means that one is receiving judgement from another person as ‘good’. And the measure of what is good or bad about that act is that person’s yardstick. If receiving praise is what one is after, one will have no choice but to adapt to that person’s yardstick and put the brakes on one’s own freedom. ‘Thank you’, on the other hand, rather than being judgement, is a clear expression of gratitude. When one hears words of gratitude, one knows that one has made a contribution to another person.
• ‘It is only when a person is able to feel that he has worth that he can possess courage.’
• It is when one is able to feel I am beneficial to the community that one can have a true sense of one’s worth.
• One must not praise. And one must not rebuke, either. All words that are used to judge other people are words that come out of vertical relationships, and we need to build horizontal relationships. And it is only when one is able to feel that one is of use to someone that one can have a true awareness of one’s worth.
• There are parents who will compare their child to such an image of an ideal child—which is an impossible fiction—and then be filled with complaints and dissatisfaction. They treat the idealised image as one hundred points, and they gradually subtract from that. This is truly a ‘judgement’ way of thinking. Instead, the parents could refrain from comparing their child to anyone else, see him for who he actually is, and be glad and grateful for his being there.
• When one is sad, one should be sad to one’s heart’s content. It is precisely when one tries to escape the pain and sadness that one gets stuck and ceases to be able to build deep relationships with anyone.
• In other words, you’re saying that to feel ‘it’s okay to be here’ one has to see others as comrades. And that to see others as comrades, one needs both self-acceptance and confidence in others.
• ‘The two objectives for behaviour: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. The two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviours: the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.’
• In the teachings of Judaism, one finds the following anecdote: ‘If there are ten people, one will be someone who criticises you no matter what you do. This person will come to dislike you, and you will not learn to like him either. Then, there will be two others who accept everything about you and whom you accept too, and you will become close friends with them. The remaining seven people will be neither of these types.’ Now, do you focus on the one person who dislikes you? Do you pay more attention to the two who love you? Or would you focus on the crowd, the other seven?
• Does one accept oneself on the level of acts, or on the level of being? This is truly a question that relates to the courage to be happy.
• If one really has a feeling of contribution, one will no longer have any need for recognition from others. Because one will already have the real awareness that ‘I am of use to someone’, without needing to go out of one’s way to be acknowledged by others. In other words, a person who is obsessed with the desire for recognition does not have any community feeling yet, and has not managed to engage in self-acceptance, confidence in others or contribution to others.
• But the children who try to be especially bad—that is to say, the ones who engage in problem behaviour—are endeavouring to attract the attention of other people even as they continue to avoid any such healthy effort. In Adlerian psychology, this is referred to as the ‘pursuit of easy superiority’.
• Self-acceptance is the vital first step. If you are able to possess the courage to be normal, your way of looking at the world will change dramatically.
• A well-planned life is not something to be treated as necessary or unnecessary, as it is impossible.
• Life is a series of moments, and neither the past nor the future exist.
• To be sure, likening one’s life to a story is probably an entertaining job. The problem is, one can see the dimness that lies ahead at the end of the story. Moreover, one will try to lead a life that is in line with that story. And then one says, my life is such-and-such, so I have no choice but to live this way, and it’s not because of me—it’s my past, it’s the environment, and so on.
• You set objectives for the distant future, and think of now as your preparatory period. You think, I really want to do this, and I’ll do it when the time comes. This is a way of living that postpones life.
• Until now, you have turned away from the here and now, and only shone a light on invented pasts and futures. You have told a great lie to your life, to these irreplaceable moments.
• ‘Whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual.’
• So, life in general has no meaning whatsoever. But you can assign meaning to that life. And you are the only one who can assign meaning to your life.
• Then, let’s dance in earnest the moments of the here and now, and live in earnest. Do not look at the past, and do not look at the future. One lives each complete moment like a dance. There is no need to compete with anyone, and one has no use for destinations. As long as you are dancing, you will get somewhere.
• ‘Someone has to start. Other people might not be cooperative, but that is not connected to you. My advice is this: You should start. With no regard to whether others are cooperative or not.’
• ‘The world is simple, and life is too.’
• ‘It is only in social contexts that a person becomes an individual’