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At present, 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.
How to Win Friends and Influence People
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,
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.
teleology (the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause).
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.
“People are not driven by past causes but move toward goals that they themselves set”—
The Greek word for “good” (agathon) does not have a moral meaning. It just means “beneficial.” Conversely, the word for “evil” (kakon) means “not beneficial.”
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.
it’s scary to take even one step forward;
you don’t want to make realistic efforts. You don’t want to change so much that you’d be willing to sacrifice the pleasures you enjoy now—
If someone were to abuse me to my face, I would think about the person’s hidden goal.
in Adlerian psychology, self-reliance as an individual and cooperation within society are put forth as overarching objectives.
Why is it that people seek recognition from others? In many cases, it is due to the influence of reward-and-punishment education.
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.
In the teachings of Judaism, one finds a view that goes something like this: 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 it comes to who you are living it for, of course it’s you. And then, if you are not living your life for yourself, who could there be to live it instead of you? Ultimately, we live thinking about “I.” There is no reason that we must not think that way.
So one could think, God is watching, so accumulate good deeds. But that and the nihilist view that “there is no God, so all evil deeds are permitted” are two sides of the same coin.
“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.”
Pg 117
How to Separate Tasks
Separate tasks for living more “self-centered” in a good way. How to not live by reward-&-punishment. Do not live for recognition by God or other people.
Did you learn to enjoy studying
“Whose task is this?”
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.
ALL RELATIONSHIP PROBLEMS stem from intrusions on others' tasks.
Who ultimately is going to receive the result brought about by the choice that is made?
If it’s studying that is the issue, one tells the child that 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.
you. You are worried about being judged by other people. That is why you are constantly craving recognition from others.
You haven’t done the separation of tasks yet. You assume that even things that should be other people’s tasks are your own.
Adler’s life-lie again. I can’t do my work because I’ve been shunned by my boss. It’s the boss’s fault that my work isn’t going well. The person who says such things is bringing up the existence of the boss as an excuse for the work that doesn’t go well. Much like the female student with the fear of blushing, it’s actually that you need the existence of an awful boss. Because then you can say, “If only I didn’t have this boss, I could get more work done.”
Life-Lie:
I need the existence of awful, controlling people as an excuse for the work that doesn't go well...
You think, I’ve got that boss, so I can’t work. This is complete etiology. But it’s really, I don’t want to work, so I’ll create an awful boss, or I don’t want to acknowledge my incapable self, so I’ll create an awful boss. That would be the teleological way of looking at it.
Teleological way of looking: for its purpose, not its cause. The excuses are put in place to take away your responsibility to do your best work.
What I should do is face my own tasks in my own life without lying.
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 at other people, while they are actually looking only at themselves.
So he’s basically running away from all the tasks of work and tasks of friendship and tasks of love. Would you say that even a guy like that belongs to some sort of community?
you will escape within a smaller community, such as your home. You will shut yourself in, and maybe even turn to violence against members of your own family. And by doing such things, you will be attempting to gain a sense of belonging somehow.
Though this might be termed a “you and I” relationship, if it is one that can break down just because you raise an objection, then it is not the sort of relationship you need to get into in the first place.
Hmm. Maybe I do have an awareness of manipulation somewhere in my psyche when I go about praising other people. Laying on the flattery to get in good favor with my boss—that’s definitely manipulation, isn’t it?
When one is not following through with one’s tasks, it is not because one is without ability. Adlerian psychology tells us that the issue here is not one of ability but simply that “one has lost the courage to face one’s tasks.” And if that is the case, the thing to do before anything else is to recover that lost courage.
The more one is praised by another person, the more one forms the belief that one has no ability. Please do your best to remember this.
The most important thing is to not judge other people. “Judgment” is a word that comes out of vertical relationships. If one is building horizontal relationships, there will be words of more straightforward gratitude and respect and joy.
“Thank you,” on the other hand, rather than being judgment, is a clear expression of gratitude. When one hears words of gratitude, one knows that one has made a contribution to another person.
However, if you can say a straightforward thank you, the child just might feel his own worth and take a new step forward.
I am not telling you to make friends with everyone, or behave as if you are close friends. Rather, what is important is to be equal in consciousness, and to assert that which needs to be asserted.
There is space for you to refuse, and there should also be space to propose a better way of doing things. You are just thinking there is no space to refuse so that you can avoid the conflict of the associated interpersonal relations and avoid responsibility—
Age does not matter in love and friendship. It is certainly true that the tasks of friendship require a steady courage.
So in other words, you do not have confidence in your innocent self, in yourself just as you are, right? And you stay away from the kind of interpersonal relationship in which you would just be yourself.
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.
However, these three are linked as an indispensable whole, in a sort of circular structure. It is because one accepts oneself just as one is—one self-accepts—that one can have “confidence in others” without the fear of being taken advantage of. And it is because one can place unconditional confidence in others, and feel that people are one’s comrades, that one can engage in “contribution to others.” Further, it is because one contributes to others that one can have the deep awareness that “I am of use to someone” and accept oneself just as one is. One can self-accept.
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. One ought to concern oneself with everything, from household chores and child-rearing to one’s friendships and hobbies and so on. Adler does not recognize ways of living in which certain aspects are unusually dominant.
Whether it is on the level of acts or on the level of being, one needs to feel that one is of use to someone. That is to say, one needs a feeling of contribution.
But even if it is in the form of rebuke, the child wants his parents’ attention. He wants to be a special being, and the form that attention takes doesn’t matter. So in a sense, it is only natural that he does not stop engaging in problem behavior, no matter how harshly he is rebuked.
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.
