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The issue is not about how the world is, but about how you are.
Maybe you’ll want the glasses back on, but can you even take them off in the first place? Can you look directly at the world? Do you have the courage?
PHILOSOPHER: Of course people can change. They can also find happiness.
PHILOSOPHER: Yet those who take an etiological stance, including most counselors and psychiatrists, would argue that what you were suffering from stemmed from such-and-such cause in the past, and would then end up just consoling you by saying, “So you see, it’s not your fault.” The argument concerning so-called traumas is typical of etiology.
“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.
PHILOSOPHER: Exactly. We can’t go back to the past in a time machine. We can’t turn back the hands of time. If you end up staying in etiology, you will be bound by the past and never be able to find happiness.
However, I am not saying it’s fine to be “just as you are.” If you are unable to really feel happy, then it’s clear that things aren’t right just as they are. You’ve got to put one foot in front of the other, and not stop.
PHILOSOPHER: To quote Adler again: “The important thing is not what one is born with but what use one makes of that equipment.” You want to be Y or someone else because you are utterly focused on what you were born with. Instead, you’ve got to focus on what you can make of your equipment.
You probably think of disposition or personality as something with which you are endowed, without any connection to your will. In Adlerian psychology, however, lifestyle is thought of as something that you choose for yourself.
PHILOSOPHER: When we try to change our lifestyles, we put our great courage to the test. There is the anxiety generated by changing, and the disappointment attendant to not changing. I am sure you have selected the latter.
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. 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.
“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.”
PHILOSOPHER: 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.
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.
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 emphasized.
“The one who boasts does so only out of a feeling of inferiority.”
“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; it comes from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self.
When you are able to truly feel that “people are my comrades,” your way of looking at the world will change utterly. No longer will you think of the world as a perilous place, or be plagued by needless doubts; the world will appear before you as a safe and pleasant place. And your interpersonal relationship problems will decrease dramatically.
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 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.
Of course it will. If you change, those around you will change too. They will have no choice but to change.
Adlerian psychology is a “psychology of courage.”
An adult, who has chosen an unfree way to live, on seeing a young person living freely here and now in this moment, criticizes the youth as being hedonistic. Of course, this is a life-lie that comes out so that the adult can accept his own unfree life. An adult who has chosen real freedom himself will not make such comments and will instead cheer on the will to be free.
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.
You make the switch from attachment to self (self-interest) to concern for others (social interest).
One needs to think not, What will this person give me? but rather, What can I give to this person?
is necessary to offer assistance that does not turn into intervention.
The more one is praised by another person, the more one forms the belief that one has no ability.
“It is only when a person is able to feel that he has worth that he can possess courage.”
is when one is able to feel “I am beneficial to the community” that one can have a true sense of one’s worth.
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.
Kurt Vonnegut quoted in one of his books: “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.” It’s in the novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
from the standpoint of Adlerian psychology, the basis of interpersonal relations is founded not on trust but on confidence.
If you do not have the desire to make your relationship with that person better, then go ahead and sever it. Because carrying out the severing is your task.
It is precisely because one can gain the courage to enter into deeper relationships by having confidence in others that the joy of one’s interpersonal relations can grow, and one’s joy in life can grow, too.
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. Think about it this way. We can believe. And we can doubt. But we are aspiring to see others as our comrades. To believe or to doubt—the choice should be clear.
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.
In fact, 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.
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.
For a human being, the greatest unhappiness is not being able to like oneself.
We are beings who choose freedom while aspiring to happiness.
Adler, having stated that “life in general has no meaning,” then continues, “Whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual.”
If I change, the world will change. No one else will change the world for me . . .
No, that is not the case. You say you wish you had known this ten years ago. It is because Adler’s thought resonates with you now that you are thinking this. No one knows how you would have felt about it ten years ago. This discussion was something that you needed to hear now.
