The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

by Ichiro Kishimi

No, I am not affirming someone having an affair. Think about it this way: 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. One can be in a calm and quite natural state, without having feelings of inferiority or being beset with the need to flaunt one’s superiority. That is what real love is like. Restriction, on the other hand, is a manifestation of the mind-set of attempting to control one’s partner, and also an idea founded on a sense of distrust. Being in the same space with someone who distrusts you isn’t a natural situation that one can put up with, is it? As Adler says, “If two people want to live together on good terms, they must treat each other as equal personalities.”