The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga.

 The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga.

[Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler are all giants in the world of psychology. The Courage to Be Disliked follows a conversation between a young man and a philosopher as they discuss the tenets of Alfred Adler’s theories.]

[All the notes below are the ‘ Philosopher’s comments/answers].

None of us live in an objective world, but instead in a subjective world that we ourselves have given meaning to. The world you see is different from the one I see, and it’s impossible to share your world with anyone else.

Before an effect, there’s a cause. Or, in other words, who I am now (the effect) is determined by occurrences in the past (the causes)

Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, much of the content closely resembles Adler’s ideas.

To quote Adler again: The important thing is not what one is born with but what use one makes of that equipment. 

Not even the most hardened criminal becomes involved in crime purely out of a desire to engage in evil acts. Every criminal has an internal justification for getting involved in crime.

In Adlerian psychology, we describe personality and disposition with the word lifestyle. In a narrow sense, lifestyle could be defined as someone’s personality; taken more broadly, it is a word that encompasses the worldview of that person and his or her outlook on life.

In Adlerian psychology, however, lifestyle is thought of as something that you choose for yourself. you did not consciously choose this kind of self. Your first choice was probably unconscious, combined with external factors you have referred to—that is, race, nationality, culture, and home environment. These certainly had a significant influence on that choice. Nevertheless, it is you who chose this kind of self.  Adlerian psychology’s view is that it happens around the age of ten.

Your lifestyle is not something that you were naturally born with, but something you chose yourself, then it must be possible to choose it over again. Being born in this country, in this era, and with these parents are things you did not choose. And all these things have a great deal of influence. The issue is not the past, but here, in the present. And now you’ve learned about lifestyle. But what you do with it from here on is your responsibility. Whether you go on choosing the lifestyle you’ve had up till now, or you choose a new lifestyle altogether, it’s entirely up to 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.

As 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.

People cannot simply forget the past, and neither can they become free from it.

Why You Dislike Yourself

You are afraid of being negated by other people. You’re afraid of being treated disparagingly, being refused, and sustaining deep mental wounds. You think that instead of getting entangled in such situations, it would be better if you just didn’t have relations with anyone in the first place. In other words, your goal is to not get hurt in your relationships with other people

Just find your shortcomings, start disliking yourself, and become someone who doesn’t enter into interpersonal relationships. That way, if you can shut yourself into your own shell, you won’t have to interact with anyone, and you’ll even have a justification ready whenever other people snub you. That it’s because of your shortcomings that you get snubbed, and if things weren’t this way, you too could be loved.

You were so afraid of interpersonal relationships that you came to dislike yourself. You’ve avoided interpersonal relationships by disliking yourself.

Don’t be evasive. Being the way I am with all these shortcomings is, for you, a precious virtue. In other words, something that’s to your benefit.

Don’t forget, it’s basically impossible to not get hurt in your relations with other people. When you enter into interpersonal relationships, it is inevitable that to a greater or lesser extent you will get hurt, and you will hurt someone, too. Adler says, To get rid of one’s problems, all one can do is live in the universe all alone. But one can’t do such a thing.

All problems are interpersonal relationship problems. This is a concept that runs to the very root of Adlerian psychology. If all interpersonal relationships were gone from this world, which is to say if one were alone in the universe and all other people were gone, all manner of problems would disappear.

Feelings of Inferiority Are Subjective Assumptions

The feeling of inferiority has to do with one’s value judgment of oneself. It’s the feeling that one has no worth, or that one is worth only so much.

We cannot alter objective facts. But subjective interpretations can be altered as much as one likes. And we are inhabitants of a subjective world. 

the feelings of inferiority we’re suffering from are subjective interpretations rather than objective facts?

First of all, people enter this world as helpless beings. And people have the universal desire to escape from that helpless state. Adler called this the pursuit of superiority. Adler is saying that the pursuit of superiority and the feeling of inferiority are not diseases but stimulants to normal, healthy striving and growth. If it is not used in the wrong way, the feeling of inferiority, too, can promote striving and growth.

At base, complex refers to an abnormal mental state made up of a complicated group of emotions and ideas and has nothing to do with the feeling of inferiority. It’s crucial to not mix up feeling of inferiority and inferiority complex and to think about them as clearly separate.

As Adler says, the feeling of inferiority can be a trigger for striving and growth. For instance, if one had a feeling of inferiority with regard to one’s education, and resolved to oneself, I’m not well educated, so I’ll just have to try harder than anyone else, that would be a desirable direction. The inferiority complex, on the other hand, refers to a condition of having begun to use one’s feeling of inferiority as a kind of excuse. So one thinks to oneself, I’m not well educated, so I can’t succeed. 

One makes a show of being on good terms with a powerful person and by doing that, one lets it be known that one is special. 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.

There’s the kind of person who likes to boast about his achievements. Someone who clings to his past glory and is always recounting memories of the time when his light shone brightest. All such people can be said to have superiority complexes. As Adler clearly indicates, The one who boasts does so only out of a feeling of inferiority.

The sound of the words that inferiority complex and superiority complex were polar opposites, in actuality, they border on each other. It is a pattern leading to a particular feeling of superiority that manifests due to the feeling of inferiority itself becoming intensified.

Adler himself pointed out, In our culture weakness can be quite strong and powerful. Adler says, In fact, if we were to ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture, the logical answer would be, the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated. The baby rules over the adults with his weakness. And it is because of this weakness that no one can control him.

The pursuit of superiority is the mindset of taking a single step forward on one’s own feet, not the mindset of competition of the sort that necessitates aiming to be greater than other people. life is not a competition

When one is conscious of competition and victory and defeat, it is inevitable that feelings of inferiority will arise. 

From Power Struggle to Revenge

Let’s say you and a friend have been discussing the current political situation. Before long, it turns into a heated argument, and neither of you is willing to accept any differences of opinion until finally, it reaches the point where he starts engaging in personal attacks—that you’re stupid. It’s that he finds you unbearable, and he wants to criticize and provoke you and make you submit through a power struggle. If you get angry at this point, the moment he has been anticipating will arrive, and the relationship will suddenly turn into a power struggle. No matter what the provocation, you must not get taken in.

Now let’s say you take control of the quarrel. And then the other man, who was seeking to defeat you, withdraws in a sportsmanlike manner. The thing is, the power struggle doesn’t end there. Having lost the dispute, he rushes on to the next stage. And once the interpersonal relationship reaches the revenge stage, it is almost impossible for either party to find a solution. To prevent this from happening, when one is challenged to a power struggle, one must never allow oneself to be taken in.

Admitting Fault Is Not Defeat

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. When you control your anger, you’re bearing it,. let’s learn a way to settle things without using the emotion of anger. Because after all, anger is a tool. A means for achieving a goal. ​​We can convey our thoughts and intentions and be accepted without any need for anger. Believe in the power of language and the language of logic.

the rightness of one’s assertions has nothing to do with winning or losing. If you think you are right, regardless of what other people’s opinions might be, the matter should be closed then and there. However, many people will rush into a power struggle and try to make others submit to them. And that is why they think of admitting a mistake as admitting defeat. Admitting mistakes, conveying words of apology, and stepping down from power struggles—none of these things is defeat. The pursuit of superiority is not something that is carried out through competition with other people.

Overcoming the Tasks That Face You in Life

In Adlerian psychology, clear objectives are laid out for human behavior and psychology. First, there are two objectives for behavior: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. Then, the two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors are the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.

in the process of growing up, one begins to have all kinds of relationships. Adler made three categories of the interpersonal relationships that arise out of these processes. He referred to them as tasks of work, tasks of friendship, and tasks of love, and all together as life tasks.

A lot of people think that the more friends you have the better, but I’m not so sure about that. There’s no value at all in the number of friends or acquaintances you have. And this is a subject that connects with the task of love, but what we should be thinking about is the distance and depth of the relationship.

If you change, those around you will change too. They will have no choice but to change. Adlerian psychology is a psychology for changing oneself, not a psychology for changing others.

people are extremely selfish creatures who are capable of finding any number of flaws and shortcomings in others whenever the mood strikes them. Adler called the state of coming up with all manner of pretexts in order to avoid the life tasks the life-lie.

Freudian etiology is a psychology of possession, and eventually, it arrives at determinism. Adlerian psychology, on the other hand, is a psychology of use, and it is you who decides it.

Adlerian psychology denies the need to seek recognition from others. There is no need to be recognized by others. Actually, one must not seek recognition. When trying to be recognized by others, almost all people treat satisfying other people’s expectations as the means to that end. And that is in accordance with the stream of thought of reward-and-punishment education that says one will be praised if one takes appropriate action

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.

As Adler says, Children who have not been taught to confront challenges will try to avoid all challenges.

Not wanting to be disliked by other people. To human beings, this is an entirely natural desire and an impulse. Kant, the giant of modern philosophy, called this desire inclination; it is one’s instinctive desires, one’s impulsive desires. 

Freedom is being disliked by other people. ​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 is a cost incurred when one wants to exercise one’s freedom. And the cost of freedom in interpersonal relationships is that one is disliked by other people. 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.

He hit me that time, and that is why our relationship went bad, is a Freudian etiological way of thinking. The Adlerian teleology position completely reverses the cause-and-effect interpretation. That is to say, I brought out the memory of being hit because I don’t want my relationship with my father to get better.

Adlerian psychology is formally referred to as individual psychology. In Adlerian psychology, physical symptoms are not regarded separately from the mind (psyche). The mind and body are viewed as one, as a whole that cannot be divided into parts.

Forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance. At the same time, people who get too close end up not even being able to speak to each other, so it is not good to get too far apart, either. Adlerian psychology has the view that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems. Interpersonal relations are the source of unhappiness. And the opposite can be said, too—interpersonal relations are the source of happiness. 

Community feeling (community includes the universe, from past to future) is the most important index for considering a state of interpersonal relations that is happy. One has to stand on one’s own two feet and take one’s own steps forward with the tasks of interpersonal relations. One needs to think not, What will this person give me? but rather, What can I give to this person? That is commitment to the community.

One must not praise, and one must not rebuke. That is the standpoint of Adlerian psychology. When one person praises another, the goal is to manipulate someone who has less ability than you. It is not done out of gratitude or respect. Adlerian psychology refutes all manner of vertical relationships and proposes that all interpersonal relationships be horizontal relationships. In a sense, this point may be regarded as the fundamental principle of Adlerian psychology.

You convey words of gratitude, saying thank you to this partner who has helped you with your work. You might express straightforward delight: I’m glad. Or you could convey your thanks by saying, That was a big help. This is an approach to encouragement that is based on horizontal relationships. When one hears words of gratitude, one knows that one has made a contribution to another person

It’s making the switch from attachment to self (self-interest) to concern for others (social interest) and gaining a sense of community feeling. Three things are needed at this point: self-acceptance, confidence in others, and contribution to others.

Accept what is irreplaceable (e.g. one is born with). And have the courage to change what one can change. That is self-acceptance. It is also mentioned in the serenity prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

From the standpoint of Adlerian psychology, the basis of interpersonal relations is founded not on trust (e.g. how bank give loans based on your credibility to pay back) but on confidence. Unconditional confidence is a means for making your interpersonal relationship with a person better and for building a horizontal relationship.

Adler goes so far as to warn that those who sacrifice their own lives for others are people who have conformed to society too much. We are truly aware of our own worth only when we feel that our existence and behavior are beneficial to the community

Happiness is the feeling of contribution. That is the definition of happiness.

If the goal of climbing a mountain were to get to the top, that would be a kinetic act. To take it to the extreme, it wouldn’t matter if you went to the mountaintop in a helicopter, stayed there for five minutes or so, and then headed back in the helicopter again. Of course, if you didn’t make it to the mountaintop, that would mean the mountain-climbing expedition was a failure. However, if the goal is mountain climbing itself, and not just getting to the top, one could say it is energeial. In this case, in the end it doesn’t matter whether one makes it to the mountaintop or not.

When one attempts to choose freedom, it is only natural that one may lose one’s way. At this juncture, Adlerian psychology holds up a guiding star as a grand compass pointing to a life of freedom.No matter what moments you are living, or if there are people who dislike you, as long as you do not lose sight of the guiding star of I contribute to others, you will not lose your way, and you can do whatever you like. Whether you’re disliked or not, you pay it no mind and live free.