The Courage to be Disliked: The Japanese phenomenon that shows you how to free yourself, change your life and achieve real happiness

by Ichiro Kishimi

‘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.’

Nothing that happens to us determines who we are, but we can determine how to use it to influence ourselves

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.