The Courage to be Disliked By Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga

 

“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.”

Happiness is a feeling of contribution.

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.

Main Takeaways

Our past doesn’t determine our future, change is always possible.  

• We are free to choose our own destiny and don’t need to be defined by past trauma. All our created states can be changed. There are children who were abused and go on to be happy fulfilled people while there are other children who become miserable and depressed. We can change and our ability to change our mind is always available to us. 

We choose how we look at the world 

• In Adlerian psychology, lifestyle refers to what is traditionally known as character or personality. People’s moods are not a fixed thing. Rather, they’re dependent on their outlooks on life. Therefore, if your vision of the world is negative, everything in your life will be seen through a lens of pessimism.

Change is hard, we become more comfortable with our current situation than the discomfort of changing.

• Look at unhappy people who constantly say “they want to change”, but if they really wanted to change they would have already. We often tend to blame outside things instead of having the courage to change ourselves. Courage is the solution. 

A competitive mindset is toxic. 

• If you think you need to “win” at everything in order to be happy (fame, money, power, etc..) you’ll never have a peaceful internal state. Once you let go of your competitive mindset and embrace abundance you’ll realize how much more everyone can have. 

We fabricate our emotions.

• A mother is angrily yelling at her daughter. The phone rings, so she picks it up and changes her tone and becomes very polite, then when she hangs up, she goes back to yelling again! We fabricate emotions to reach our goals.
• You use feelings of inferiority as an excuse.

Stop trying to fulfill other people’s expectations and live your own life.

• If we’re constantly only striving for other people’s approval we’ll never find happiness. If we’re only motivated by others’ approval then every decision we make (career, spouse, etc..) will be based on other people’s values and not our own. Living by your own values and internal expectations will lead to disappointment by people close to you… That is ok. Freedom is being disliked by other people. 

Subjective interpretations can be altered.

• Take diamonds, for instance, which are traded at a high value. Or currency. We find particular values for these things and say that one carat is this much, that prices are such and such. But if you change your point of view, a diamond is nothing but a little stone.
• “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 judgment do other people pass on that choice? That is the task of other people, and is not a matter you can do anything about”

Happiness is a feeling of contribution

• 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.

 

Life is Simple 

• The world is simple and life is simple, too. The world is not complicated, we make it so. We don’t live in an objective world, but instead in a subjective world that we ourselves have given meaning to. The world seems complicated and mysterious to you, but if you change, the world will appear more simple. The issue is not about how the world is, but about how you are.

 

Etiology vs. Teleology 

• Etiology is looking for causes in the past, which are often used to console you by saying: ‘you see, it’s not your fault. The argument of traumas is typical of etiology. Freud’s idea is that a person’s psychic wounds (traumas) cause his or her present unhappiness. But Adler denies the existence of trauma. “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 whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.” He is not saying that the experience of abuse during childhood or other terrible incidents have no influence on forming a personality, their influences are strong. But the important thing is that nothing is actually determined by those influences.
• Your friend is insecure, so he can’t go out. Think about it the other way around. He doesn’t want to go out, so he’s creating a state of anxiety. This is called teleology. This is the difference between etiology (= the study of causation) and teleology (= the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause).

 

We Can Change

• If we focus only on past causes and try to explain things solely through cause and effect, we end up with “determinism”. Because what this says is that our present and our future have already been decided by past occurrences, and are unalterable.
• In Adlerian psychology, we do not think about past “causes” but rather about present “goals”.
• There is no such thing as “trauma” – ‘no experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure, we do not suffer from the shock of our experience 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 essence, the self is determined not by our experiences but by the meaning that we give them. We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those past experiences.
• We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences — the so-called trauma — but instead, we make out of them whatever suits our purpose. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.

 

We Fabricate Emotions

• Our emotions don’t happen as a result of things, we have emotions in order to serve our own goals. Emotions are manufactured because we choose to experience those emotions. Emotions exist, but we don’t need to be controlled by them or our past. 

• You did not fly into a rage and then start shouting. It is solely that you got angry so that you could shout. In other words, in order to fulfill the goal of shouting, you created the emotion of anger.  The goal of shouting came before anything else. That is to say, by shouting, you wanted to make the waiter submit to you and listen to what you had to say. As a means to do that, you fabricated the emotion of anger.
• Anger is a tool that can be taken out as needed. It can be put away the moment the phone rings and pulled out again after one hangs up. The mother isn’t yelling in anger she can’t control. She is simply using the anger to overpower her daughter with a loud voice and thereby assert her opinions.

 

Lifestyle is a choice

• In Adlerian psychology, personality and dispositions are described with the word ‘lifestyle’. Lifestyle is the tendencies of thought and action in life. How one sees the world, and how one sees oneself. It’s the way one’s life should be. It is something you choose for yourself.
• ‘I’m a pessimist vs. ‘I have a pessimistic view of the world’ Lifestyle is the tendencies of thought and action in life. 
• 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.

 

Personality and Worldview 

• A personality suggests that it is unchangeable, but a view of the world should be possible to alter. There are some things you cannot choose, like where you are born, with which parents and in which era. These have a great deal of influence. But what you do from here on is your responsibility.
• Adlerian psychology is about courage. Unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence, you just lack courage.
• If you leave your life as it is, your experience enables you to respond properly to events as they occur, while guessing the result of one’s actions. But if you choose a new lifestyle, you cannot predict what might happen to you and you have no idea how to deal with events as they arise. It will be hard to see ahead to the future and life will be filled with anxiety. A more painful and unhappy life may lie ahead. Even if you complain about your current life, it is easier and more secure to be just the way one is. There is the anxiety generated by changing and the disappointment with not changing.
• 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.

 

All Problems are Interpersonal Relationship Problems

• “Remember the words of the grandmother – you’re the only one who’s worried about how you look – her remark drives right to the heart of the separation of tasks – what other people think when they see your face, that is the task of other people and is not something you have any control over”.
• You notice only your shortcoming because you’ve resolved to not start liking yourself. In order to not like yourself, you don’t see your strong points and focus only on your shortcomings.
• “My feelings about my height were all subjective feelings of inferiority, which arose entirely through my comparing myself to others. That is to say, in my interpersonal relationships. Value is something based on a social context. The value given to a one-dollar bill is not an objectively attributed value, though that might be a commonsense approach. If one considers its actual cost as printed material, the value is nowhere near a dollar. If I were the only person in this world and no one else existed, I’d probably be putting those one-dollar bills in my fireplace in wintertime. Maybe I’d be using them to blow my nose. Following the exact same logic, there should have been no reason at all for me to worry about my height. 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 yourself to be taken in.

 

Life is not a Competition

• Adler recognizes that the pursuit of superiority — ones’ trying to be a more superior being — is a universal desire, but the pursuit 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.
• According to him, we are on the same level playing field; there are people who are moving forward, and there are people who are moving forward behind them. The distance covered and the speed of walking differ, but everyone is walking on the same flat surface. The pursuit of superiority is the mindset of taking a step forward, not the mindset of competition that aims to be greater than other people. It’s enough to just keep moving in a forward direction, without competing with anyone. And there is no need to compare oneself with others. A healthy feeling of inferiority does not come from comparing yourself to others, it comes from comparing yourself to your ideal self. When you are trying to be oneself, competition will inevitably get in the way. By looking at the world as a competition, with winners and losers, you will start to see everyone as your enemy. As if everyone is waiting for you to slip and attack you at the drop of a hat. Even if you would be winning, you will never have a moment’s peace. You don’t want to become a loser, so you have to keep on winning You’re the only one who’s worried about how you look.

 

Power Struggles With Others 

• Avoid them! 
• Many forms of abuse are at their core a challenge to a power struggle. Political discussions often turn into heated arguments, as neither of you is willing to accept any differences in opinion, until it reaches a point that one engages in personal attacks. Once an interpersonal relationship reaches the revenge stage, it is almost impossible for either party to find a solution. To prevent this from happening: when you are invited to a power struggle, never allow yourself to be taken in. Don’t answer his action with a reaction. Do not respond to provocations.
• No matter how much you think you are right, try not to criticize the other party on that basis. The moment you are convinced ‘I am right before a conversation, you have already stepped into a power struggle. Thinking that you are right automatically led to the assumption that the other person is wrong. At that point, the discussion shifts from the rightness of the assertions to the state of the interpersonal relationship. Finally, it turns into a contest and you are thinking that you have to win… power struggle.

 

Admitting Fault is Not Defeat

• 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 first thing that I want you to understand here is the fact that anger is a form of communication, and that communication is nevertheless possible without using anger. Admitting mistakes, conveying words of apology, and stepping down from power struggles — none of these things are defeat.

 

“In Adlerian psychology, 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. These objectives can be achieved by facing what Adler calls ‘life tasks’, he referred to them as ‘tasks of work’, ‘tasks of friendship’, and ‘tasks of love’. These are solely obligations in terms of interpersonal relationships, that is the distance and depth in the relationship.”

 

Two objectives of Human Behavior

• Be self-reliant
• Live in harmony with society

Then the two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors are the consciousness that I have the ability & people are my comrades

“When one is trying to be oneself, competition will inevitably get in the way”.

• Similar to Jim Dethmers, “everyone is an ally”. We need to stop viewing that we’re in competition with everyone else. Society has constructed a competitive mindset – “It does not matter if one is trying to walk in front of others or walk behind them it is as if we are moving through a flat space that has no vertical axis. We do not walk in order to compete with someone – it is in trying to progress past who one is now that there is value”.

 

These objectives can be achieved by facing what Adler calls “life tasks”.

• Tasks of Work

• • • Work that can be completed without the cooperation of other people is in principle  unfeasible.No one can complete work tasks all by themselves, it requires competition of others. Interpersonal relationships of work have the lowest hurdles. They have the easy-to-understand common objective of obtaining good results, so people can cooperate even if they don’t always get along, and to some extent they have no choice but to cooperate. And as long as a relationship is formed solely on the basis of work, it will go back to being a relationship with an outsider when working hours are over or one changes jobs.

• Tasks of Friendship

• • 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.

• Tasks of Love

• • There is 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.
  • Adler does not accept restricting one’s partner. If the person seems to be happy, one can frankly celebrate that condition. That is love. Relationships in which people restrict each other eventually fall apart. The restriction is a manifestation of the mindset of attempting to control one’s partner, and also an idea founded on a sense of distrust.
  • The kind of relationship that feels somehow oppressive and strained when the two people are together cannot be called love, even if there is passion. When one can think, Whenever I am with this person, I can behave very freely, one can really feel love.

 

The desire for Recognition, Deny it

• Until you develop the courage to become unconcerned with other people’s judgments you won’t be able to live life your way. You’ll constantly be following the expectations of others. There is no need to be recognized by others. Actually, one must not seek recognition. This point cannot be overstated.
• If one takes appropriate action, one receives praise. If one takes inappropriate action, one receives punishment. We are brought up with the education of 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 you get that recognition, would you say that you’ve really found happiness? Do people who have established their social status truly feel happy? 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. What is it about the interpersonal relationships that are robbing us of our freedom? Do not live to satisfy the expectations of others. If you are not living your life for yourself, then who is going to live it for you? you are living only your own life. 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. Wishing so hard to be recognized will lead to a life of following expectations held by other people who want you to be “this kind of person”. In other words, you throw away who you really are and live other people’s lives.

 

How to Separate Tasks

•  Do not behave without regard for others. We need to think with the perspective of “Whose task is this?” and continually separate one’s own tasks from other people’s tasks.
• To understand this, it is necessary to understand the idea in Adlerian psychology known as the “separation of tasks.”
• One does not intrude on other people’s tasks. That’s all.
• 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.
• There is a simple way to tell whose task it is. Think, Who ultimately is going to receive the result brought about by the choice that is made? 
• Adlerian psychology does not recommend the noninterference approach. Noninterference is the attitude of not knowing, and not even being interested in knowing what the child is doing. Instead, it is by knowing what the child is doing that one protects him. If it’s studying that is the issue, one tells the child that is his task, and one lets him know that one is ready to assist him whenever he has the urge to study. But one must not intrude on the child’s task. When no requests are being made, it does not do to meddle in things.

Whose task is this?

• The act of believing is also a separation of tasks. You believe in your partner, that is your task. But how that person acts with regard to your expectations and trust is other people’s task.
• Intervening in other people’s tasks and taking on other people’s tasks turns one’s life into something heavy and full of hardship. If you are leading a life of worry and suffering — which stems from interpersonal relationships — learn the boundary. 
• “From here on, that is not my task.” And discard other people’s tasks. That is the first step toward lightening the load and making life simpler.
• 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 judgment do other people pass on that choice? That is the task of other people and is not a matter you can do anything about. One can build good relationships. The separation of tasks is not the objective for interpersonal relationships. Rather, it is the gateway.
• The three life tasks are work, friendship, and love.
• Intervening in other people’s tasks and taking on other people’s tasks turns one’s life into something heavy and full of hardship. If you are leading a life of worry and suffering—which stems from interpersonal relationships—learn the boundary of “From here on, that is not my task.” And discard other people’s tasks. That is the first step toward lightening the load and making life simpler.
• Are you saying that it doesn’t matter how sad I make my parents feel? PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. It doesn’t matter.
• 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 judgment do other people pass on that choice? That is the task of other people and is not a matter you can do anything about.
• You should think, What I should do is face my own tasks in my own life without lying.
• First, one should ask, “Whose task is this?” Then do the separation of tasks. Calmly delineate up to what point one’s own tasks go, and from what point they become another person’s tasks. And do not intervene in other people’s tasks, or allow even a single person to intervene in one’s own tasks.
• When reading a book, if one brings one’s face too close to it, one cannot see anything. In the same way, forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance. When the distance gets too small and people become stuck together, it becomes impossible to even speak to each other. But the distance must not be too great, either.
• One should be ready to lend a hand when needed but not encroach on the person’s territory. It is important to maintain this kind of moderate distance.
• What should one do to not be disliked by anyone? There is only one answer: It is to constantly gauge other people’s feelings while swearing loyalty to all of them.
• There is no reason of any sort that one should not live one’s life as one pleases.

 

What is Real Freedom?

• “What is freedom?” should be clear. YOUTH: What is it? PHILOSOPHER: In short, that “freedom is being disliked by other people.”
• One neither prepares to be self-righteous nor becomes defiant. One just separates tasks. 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. Many people think that interpersonal relationship cards are held by the other person. That is why they wonder, How does that person feel about me? and end up living in such a way as to satisfy the wishes of other people. But if they can grasp the separation of tasks, they will notice that they are holding all the cards. This is a new way of thinking.
• To human beings, not wanting to be disliked by others, is an entirely natural desire, and an impulse. Kant, the giant of modern philosophy, called this desire “inclination.”
• A 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 you are 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.

 

Interpersonal Relationship Cards

• We think that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems. We seek to be free from interpersonal relationships. However, it is impossible to live all alone. In short, “freedom is being disliked by other people”. 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. Conducting oneself in such a way as to not be disliked by anyone is an extremely unfree way of living, and is also impossible.
• 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.
• 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. But if I can think, I brought out the memory of being hit because I don’t want my relationship with my father to get better, then I will be holding the card to repair relations. Because if I can change the goal, that fixes everything. Even if he had no intention to repair relations on his side, I would not mind in the least. The issue was whether or not I would resolve to do it, and I was always holding the interpersonal relationship cards.
• When one is tied to the desire for recognition, the interpersonal relationship cards will always stay in the hands of other people.
• Please do not think of the separation of tasks as something that is meant to keep other people away; instead see it as a way of thinking with which to unravel the threads of the complex entanglement of one’s interpersonal relations.

 

The Goal of Interpersonal Relationships is a Feeling of Community

• Interpersonal relations are the source of unhappiness. And the opposite can be said, too — interpersonal relations are the source of happiness.
• The community feeling is the most important index for considering a state of interpersonal relations that is happy. The community feeling is also referred to as “social interest,” that is to say, “interest in society.” You make the switch from the attachment of self (self-interest) to concern from others (social interest).
• Consider the reality of the desire for recognition. How much do others pay attention to you, and what is their judgment of you? That is to say, how much do they satisfy your desire? People who are obsessed with such a desire for recognition will seem to be looking only at themselves. They lack concern for others and are concerned solely with the “I.” Simply put, they are self-centered.

 

Why People Don’t Commit 

• People want to leave the possibility of ‘I can do it if I try’ open, by not committing to anything. They don’t want to expose their work to criticism and certainly not face the reality that they might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection. Excuses like: ‘I could do it if I had the time, if I was in the right environment if I didn’t have a family to think about. By not committing to anything, you are not able to move on. Go into “the resistance” 

 

The desire for Recognition is Self-Centered

• You are not the Center of the World! It’s a basic human desire to be part of a community and feeling that “it’s okay to be here” — having a sense of belonging. You are a part of a community, not it’s center.
• In Adlerian psychology, a sense of belonging is something that one can attain only by making an active commitment to the community of one’s own accord, and not simply by being here. 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.
• A sense of belonging is something that one acquires through one’s own efforts — it is not something one is endowed with at birth.
• While the “I” is life’s protagonist, it is never more than a member of the community and a part of the whole. When we run into difficulties in our interpersonal relations, or when we can no longer see a way out, what we should consider first and foremost is the principle that says, “Listen to the voice of the larger community.” 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.

 

Horizontal Relationships

• A company employee and a full-time housewife simply have different workplaces and roles, and are truly “equal but not the same.” 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.
• Generally speaking, there are two approaches: praise and rebuke.
  • In the act of praise, there is the aspect of it being “the passing of the judgment by a person of ability on a person of no ability”. By saying things like “Good job!”, “You’re such a good helper!” a mother is unconsciously creating a hierarchical relationship and seeing the child as beneath her. An animal training example has the same vertical relationship. When one praises another, the goal is “to manipulate someone who has less ability than you.” It is not done out of gratitude or respect.
• Whether we praise or rebuke the background goal is manipulation. Because one perceives the situation as vertical, and one sees the other party as beneath one, that one intervenes. Through intervention, one tries to lead the other party in the desired direction.
• Intervention is this kind of intruding on other people’s tasks and directing them by saying things like “You have to study” or “Get into that uni.” Assistance, on the other hand, presupposes the separation of tasks and horizontal relationships. Instead of commanding from above that the child must study, one acts on him in such a way that he can gain the confidence to take care of his own studies and his tasks on his own.
• One assists someone to solve the task with their own efforts:“You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.”
• This kind of assistance is based on horizontal relationships, it is referred to in Adlerian psychology as “encouragement.”
• When one is not following through on one’s task it’s not because they are without ability, but simply that “one has lost the courage to face one’s task.”
• The more one is praised by another person, the more one forms the belief that one has no ability. When receiving praise becomes one’s goal, one is choosing a way of living that is in line with another person’s system of values.
• 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 the encouragement that is based on horizontal relationships.
• 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 judgmental, is a clear expression of gratitude. When one hears words of gratitude, one knows that one has made a contribution to another person.
• You can contribute in two ways “level of acts” but also on “level of being”. Without judging whether or not other people did something, one rejoices in their being there, in their very existence, and one calls out to them with words of gratitude. If you consider things at the level of being, we are of use to others and have worth just by being here.

“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.

 

Community Feeling

• As the gateway of interpersonal relations, we’ve got the separation of tasks, and as the goal, there’s community feeling.  Adler’s reply was the following: “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.” My advice is exactly the same.
• It’s about community feeling, after all. Concretely speaking, 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. Accept “this me” just as it is. And have the courage to change what one can change. That is self-acceptance.
• If I am grumbling to myself as I wash the dishes, I am probably not much fun to be around, so everyone just wants to keep their distance. On the other hand, if I’m humming away to myself and washing the dishes in good spirits, the children might come and give me a hand. At the very least, I’d be creating an atmosphere in which it is easier for them to offer their help.
• “The two objectives for behavior: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. The two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors: the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.”
• People with neurotic lifestyles tend to sprinkle their speech with such words as “everyone” and “always” and “everything.” “Everyone hates me,” they will say, or “It’s always me who takes a loss,” or “Everything is wrong.”
• The feeling of “I am beneficial to the community” or “I am of use to someone” is the only thing that can give one a true awareness that one has worth.
• 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.
• People can be truly aware of their worth only when they are able to feel “I am of use to someone.” However, it doesn’t matter if the contribution one makes at such a time is without any visible form. It is enough to have the subjective sense of being of use to someone, that is to say, a feeling of contribution. And then the philosopher arrives at the following conclusion: Happiness is the feeling of contribution.

 

Confidence 

• The basis of interpersonal relations is founded not on trust but on confidence. It is doing without any set conditions whatsoever when believing in others. Even if one does not have sufficient objective grounds for trusting someone, one believes. One believes unconditionally without concerning oneself with such things as security. That is confidence.
• If one can simply accept oneself as one is, and ascertain what one can do and what one cannot, one becomes able to understand that “taking advantage” is the other person’s task, and getting to the core of “confidence in others” becomes less difficult. Placing confidence in others is connected to seeing others as comrades. So one can gain the sense of belonging, that “it’s okay to be here.”

 

Life Tasks- Work- Family- Friends = Should be Equal

• Labor is not a means of earning money. It is through labor that one makes contributions to others and commits to one’s community and that one truly feels “I am of use to someone” and even comes to accept one’s existential worth. With workaholics, the focus is solely on one specific aspect of life. They probably try to justify that by saying, “It’s busy at work, so I don’t have enough time to think about my family.” But this is a life-lie. They are simply trying to avoid their other responsibilities by using work as an excuse.
• The greatest unhappiness is not being able to like oneself. The feeling of “I am beneficial to the community” or “I am of use to someone” is the only thing that can give one a true awareness that one has worth. When we speak of contribution to others, it doesn’t matter if the contribution is not a visible one. Happiness is the feeling of contribution. That is the definition of happiness.

The reason people seek recognition is that they want to like themselves. They want to feel that they have worth. In order to feel that, they want a feeling of the contribution that tells them “I am of use to someone.” And they seek recognition from others as an easy means for gaining that feeling of contribution.

 

Courage to Be Normal

• 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. You are probably rejecting normality because you equate being normal with being incapable. Being normal is not being incapable. One does not need to flaunt one’s superiority.

 

Life is a Dance

• With dance, it is the dancing itself that is the goal, and no one is concerned with arriving somewhere by doing it. Naturally, it may happen that one arrives somewhere as a result of having danced. Since one is dancing, one does not stay in the same place. But there is no destination.
• The life that lies ahead of you is a completely blank page, and there are no tracks that have been laid for you to follow. There is no story there.
• As long as we postpone life, we can never go anywhere and will pass our days only one after the next in dull monotony, because we think of here and now as just a preparatory period, as a time for patience. But a “here and now” in which one is studying for an entrance examination in the distant future, for example, is the real thing.
• People aim to be at the top of the mountain like mountain climbers. But if life were climbing a mountain in order to reach the top, then the greater part of life would end up being “en route.” That is to say, one’s “real life” would begin with one’s trek on the mountainside, and the distance one has traveled up and until the point would be a “tentative life” led by a “tentative me.” Do not treat life as a line, which needs to constantly go up. Think of life as a series of dots. If you look through a magnifying glass at a solid line drawn with chalk, you will discover that what you thought was a line is actually a series of small dots. Seemingly linear existence is actually a series of dots, in other words, life is a series of moments.
• Our lives only exist in moments. Adults who do not know this attempt to impose “linear” lives onto young people. Their thinking is that staying on the conventional tracks — good uni, big company, stable household — is a happy life. But life is not made up of lines or anything like that.
• If life were a line, then life planning would be possible. But our lives are only a series of dots. A well-planned life is not something to be treated as necessary or unnecessary, as it is impossible. The fact that you think you can see the past, or predict the future, is proof that rather than living earnestly here and now, you are living in dim twilight. Life is a series of moments, and neither the past nor the future exists. You are trying to give yourself a way out by focusing on the past or the future.

 

The Greatest Life-Lie

• The greatest life-lie of all is to not live here and now. It is to look at the past and the future, cast a dim light on one’s entire life and believe that one has been able to see something. Until now, you have turned away from the here and now and shone light only on invented pasts and futures. You have told a great lie to your life, to these irreplaceable moments.
• What happened in the past has nothing whatsoever to do with your here and now, and what the future may hold is not a matter to think about here and now. If you are living earnestly here and now, you not will be concerned with such things. 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. As long as we postpone life, we can never go anywhere and will pass our days only one after the next in dull monotony, because we think of here and now as just a preparatory period, as a time of patience.
• Life is always simple, not something that one needs to get too serious about. If one is living each moment earnestly, there is no need to get too serious. When one adopts this viewpoint, life is always complete.

 

Meaning of Life

• Life in general has no meaning. Whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual.
• Just like the traveler who relies on the North Star, in our lives we need a guiding star. That is the Adlerian psychology way of thinking. It is an expansive ideal that says, as long as we do not lose sight of this compass and keep on moving in this direction, there is happiness.
• 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.
• Why are you lost in life? You are lost because you are trying to choose freedom, that is to say, a path on which you are not afraid of being disliked by others and you are not living others’ lives — a path that is yours alone.

 

Philosophy refers not to “wisdom” itself but to “love of wisdom,” and it is the very process of learning what one does not know and arriving at the wisdom that is important.  Whether or not one attains wisdom, in the end, is not an issue.

 

“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 int things of lightness”.