Today, I’m going to talk about a fascinating book called “The Courage to Be Disliked.” Japanese authors Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga (I hope I have pronounced their names correctly) wrote this international best-seller. It is based on the work of Dr. Alfred Adler, a 20th-century philosopher.
The book teaches readers how to break free from their past and take control of their lives. It investigates how Adlerian psychology can be used to make our lives more satisfying and meaningful. The authors discuss how important it is to accept yourself, overcome your fears, and form strong bonds with others. The book also encourages readers to develop their own values and beliefs rather than relying on others to tell them what to do.
The main character of the story is a 15-year-old boy who meets a mysterious philosopher and goes on a journey to learn more about himself. Throughout his journey, the boy discovers the power of choice and the courage to be disliked not only by his peers but also by himself. He learns that disliking yourself can be a source of strength and a tool for personal transformation. The philosopher encourages the young man to accept responsibility for his own life and future, rather than blaming anything or anyone else.
Let’s take a look at the four interesting lessons discussed in the book.
The first lesson is that your past does not determine your future.
Freudian psychology says that most of our adult lives are spent fighting, untangling, and getting over the limiting beliefs we had as children. However, in “Adlerian psychology,” we think about present goals rather than past causes. Our present is not determined by our past; rather, it is the meaning we assign to our past that determines our present.
In Adler’s words, “no experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure; we do not suffer from the shock of our experiences, 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.” In a nutshell, our experiences, not the meanings we give them, make us who we are.
Lesson 2: Our emotions do not occur as a result of events. We fabricate emotions in order to achieve our own objectives.
Assume a waiter spills coffee on your jacket, and you scream at him. Is it okay to stab him with a knife if you can’t control your emotions and anger? What really happens is that you fabricate the emotion of anger and yell at him to get him to obey you.
The book also mentions a student who complains about her fear of blushing. She blushes whenever she is in public. She has feelings for someone but is afraid to confess because of her fear. In reality, she is afraid of rejection, so she made up the fear of blushing as an excuse not to confess her feelings. She made up a lie so she could live with the possibility that “if only I hadn’t been afraid of blushing, I could’ve.”
According to the book, emotions are manufactured because we choose to experience them. All of the positive and negative emotions we experience in our lives are the result of societal conditioning and the stories we tell ourselves in order to produce those emotions. As a result, if we want to change our emotions, we can; they are not hardwired into our brain.
Lesson 3: All problems stem from interpersonal relationships.
According to the book, we should think in terms of “whose task is this?” and distinguish our own tasks from those of others. This is known as task separation. You should not be concerned with or interfere with other people’s tasks.
For example, studying is the task of the child, not the parent. The task owner is the one who will ultimately be affected by the choice. Parents use the phrase “it’s for your own good,” when in reality they’re doing so to achieve their own goals, such as their own reputation in society and desire for control. Parents should be interested in knowing what their children are doing and should let them know that they are willing to help them with their studies. They should not, however, interfere with the child’s task.
The invasion of tasks is the idea that everyone has their own jobs and that problems happen when people get in each other’s way. There are some nuances to this idea, but every problem we have with other people comes from them getting in the way of our work or us getting in the way of theirs.
We can choose what we think is the best path for us. What other people think about that choice is their business, and we can’t do anything about it. Getting rid of other people’s tasks is the first step toward simplifying our lives.
Lesson 4: Happiness is a sense of belonging to something.
Happiness is a vague concept that has been defined in a variety of ways, but if you feel useful to something or someone else, you are happy, and the pursuit of that sense of contribution is the pursuit of happiness. When you can say, “I am useful to the community,” you have a true sense of self-worth.
People who want to be noticed will look like they are looking at other people, but they are really looking at themselves. They want to be thought well of by others, which is why they are concerned about how others perceive them. That is completely self-centered. They are always thinking, “What will this person give me?” This expectation won’t always be met, so the person will feel angry and think, “That person let me down.” “That person is no longer a comrade of mine.” Self-centered individuals always lose their comrades. To create a sense of belonging and to have this perception of others as companions, we have to stop thinking about ourselves and start caring about other people.
The work that we choose for ourselves is the easiest-to-understand contribution to others. Work is how people help other people and show they care about their community. Through his work, one can realize and accept one’s existential worth.
Lesson 5: Have the guts to be normal.
In general, humans have a strong desire to stand out and be noticed by others. Whether they are trying to be good or bad, the goal is the same: to get other people’s attention. But why do you have to be a “special being?” most likely, because one is unable to accept one’s normal self.
If we consider our lives to be like climbing a mountain to get to the top, then we’ll spend our entire lives “en route.” But what if we couldn’t reach the top? How would that change the way we live? When people think this way, they see their lives as a line. Instead, the book says that we should see life as a series of dots, or “now” moments.
Life is a collection of events, and there is no past or future. We only exist in the present moment. Live in the present moment. Don’t be concerned with the past or the future.
Live your life as if it were a dance. People who performed this violin dance went on to become professional musicians. Some people who did the writing dance went on to write books, and some of them ended up in very different places. None of these people, though, died “en route.” It’s enough if dancing makes someone happy in the present moment.
The goal is to dance; you should not be concerned with getting somewhere by doing it. You can get somewhere by dancing, but there is no specific destination. The goal of mountain climbing is to climb, not to reach the top.
The Courage to Be Disliked is a life-changing book that teaches us how to take control of our lives, find our true selves, embrace freedom, and, ultimately, be happy. We can achieve true freedom and happiness by taking responsibility for our own lives and striving to be our authentic selves. Readers can gain the confidence and strength they need to make positive changes in their lives by embracing the courage to be disliked.
