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

So, you have to draw the line even with family? PHILOSOPHER: Actually, with families there is less distance, so it’s all the more necessary to consciously separate the tasks.

first, learn the boundary of ‘from here on, that is not my task’.

But how to come to terms with the emotion of ‘not approving’ is your parents’ task, not yours. It is not a problem for you to worry about.

but the person is my boss, right? I won’t get any work done if I’m shunned by my direct superior. PHILOSOPHER: That is 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.

This is what I propose. 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.

And so, such intricate knots—the bonds in our interpersonal relationships—are not to be unravelled by conventional methods, but must be severed by some completely new approach.

Speaking about Alexander The Great’s way of slicing the Gordian Knot into two—by way of his mighty sword. He defied the legend of untying the knot, even though it was a challenge issued by the former King. Later on, he went and conquered West Asia, Middle East. It illustrates how severing the rope that binds us completely, is more efficient than getting “tied up” in years of complications.

Well, I’m the same way. I have no desire to be disliked by other people. I would say that ‘no one would go so far as to actually want to be disliked’ is a sharp insight. YOUTH: It’s a universal desire! PHILOSOPHER: Even so, regardless of our efforts, there are people who dislike me, and people who dislike you. This, too, is a fact.

When you are disliked, or feel that you are being disliked, by someone, what state of mind does it put you in? YOUTH: Very distressed, to put it simply. I wonder why I’ve come to be disliked, and what I did or said that might have been offensive. I think I should have interacted with the person in a different way, and I just brood and brood over it and am ridden with guilt.

I used to go on this guilt loop, too. Not that I have ever been fully conscious of it. But sometimes—it resurfaces. Only briefly.

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.

So, first you had the goal of not wanting your relationship with your father to get better, and not wanting to repair things between you. PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. For me, it was more convenient to not repair my relationship with my father. I could use having a father like that as an excuse for why my own life wasn’t going well. That for me was a virtue. And there was also the aspect of taking revenge on a feudal father.

You were always holding the interpersonal relationship cards? PHILOSOPHER: Yes. Many people think that the 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.

the power or authority your teacher wields is nothing more than an aspect of the commonsense that operates only within the small community that is the school. From the standpoint of the community that is ‘human society’, both you and your teacher are equal humans. If unreasonable demands are being thrust on you, it is fine to object to them directly.

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. YOUTH: So, you’re saying that one praises in order to manipulate? PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Whether we praise or rebuke others, the only difference is one of the carrot or the stick, and the background goal is manipulation.

For example, there are men who verbally abuse their wives, who do all the housework, with such remarks as, ‘You’re not bringing in any money, so I don’t want to hear it’ or ‘It’s thanks to me that there’s food on the table.’ And I’m sure you’ve heard this one before: ‘You have everything you need, so what are you complaining about?’ It’s perfectly shameful. Such statements of economic superiority or the like have no connection whatsoever to human worth. A company employee and a full-time housewife simply have different workplaces and roles, and are truly ‘equal but not the same’. YOUTH: I agree entirely. PHILOSOPHER: They are probably afraid that women will grow wise to their situation and start earning more than men do, and that women will start asserting themselves. They see all interpersonal relations as vertical relationships, and they are afraid of being seen by women as beneath them. That is to say, they have intense, hidden feelings of inferiority.

The more one is praised by another person, the more one forms the belief that one has no ability.

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 judgement, is a clear expression of gratitude. When one hears words of gratitude, one knows that one has made a contribution to another person.

Instead of taking away points from some idealised image, they could start from zero. And if they do that, they should be able to call out to his existence itself.

‘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.’

If you are building even one vertical relationship with someone, before you even notice what is happening, you will be treating all your interpersonal relations as vertical. YOUTH: So, I am treating even my relationships with my friends as vertical? PHILOSOPHER: That is correct. Even if you are not treating them in a boss-or-subordinate kind of way, it is as if you are saying, ‘A is above me, and B is below me,’ for example, or ‘I’ll follow A’s advice, but ignore what B says,’ or ‘I don’t mind breaking my promise to C.’

Self-affirmation is making suggestions to oneself, such as ‘I can do it’ or ‘I am strong’, even when something is simply beyond one’s ability. It is a notion that can bring about a superiority complex, and may even be termed a way of living in which one lies to oneself. With self-acceptance, on the other hand, if one cannot do something, one is simply accepting ‘one’s incapable self’ as is, and moving forward so that one can do whatever one can.

‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.’

Here, I will consider the words ‘believing in others’ in the context of distinguishing trust from confidence. First, when we speak of trust, we are referring to something that comes with set conditions. In English, it is referred to as credit. For example, when one wants to borrow money from a bank, one has to have some kind of security. The bank calculates the amount of the loan based on the value of that security, and says, ‘We will lend you this much.’ The attitude of ‘we will lend it to you on the condition that you will pay it back,’ or ‘we will lend you as much as you are able to pay back,’ is not one of having confidence in someone. It is trust.

Important to separate trust from confidence. Have confidence in people, not trust. Because trust is something lent and can be broken; which is not a good ideology to cling onto. Unconditional is better.

And ‘confidence’ in this case is … ? PHILOSOPHER: 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.

I think I have this, what they are saying. I am naturally inclined to place high confidence in others first—before even needing to see any initial results.

But there is something one must not get wrong at this juncture: the fact that, in every instance, it is ‘that person’ who attacks you who has the problem, and it is certainly not the case that everyone is bad.

That’s right. There are not many people who will laugh at or make fun of someone when he trips over his words now and then. To use the example I just mentioned, it would probably be no more than one person in ten, at most. In any case, with the sort of foolish person who would take such an attitude, it is best to simply sever the relationship. But if one is lacking in harmony of life, one will focus only on that person and end up thinking, Everyone is laughing at me.

Could be applied toward many other things in life!

‘Work’ does not mean having a job at a company. Work in the home, childrearing, contributing to the local society, hobbies and all manner of other things are work.

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.

YOUTH: It doesn’t matter if the contribution is not a visible one? PHILOSOPHER: You are not the one who decides if your contributions are of use. That is the task of other people, and is not an issue in which you can intervene. In principle, there is not even any way you can know whether you have really made a contribution. That is to say, when we are engaging in this contribution to others, the contribution does not have to be a visible one—all we need is the subjective sense that ‘I am of use to someone’, or in other words, a feeling of contribution. YOUTH: Wait a minute! If that’s the case, then what you are calling happiness is … PHILOSOPHER: Do you see it now? In a word, happiness is the feeling of contribution. That is the definition of happiness.

“Contribution to others”

All human beings can be happy. But it must be understood—this does not mean all human beings are happy.

they try to get their parents to acknowledge them. However, when being especially good does not work out—their studies or sports don’t go well, for example—they do an about-face and try to be especially bad. YOUTH: Why do they do that? PHILOSOPHER: Whether they are trying to be especially good, or trying to be especially bad, the goal is the same: to attract the attention of other people, get out of the ‘normal’ condition and become a ‘special being’. That is their only goal.

Being rebuked, more than anything else, puts stress on the child. 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 behaviour, no matter how harshly he is rebuked.

One makes trouble for another person, while trying at the same time to be ‘special’.

Not limited to kids…

YOUTH: A series of moments? PHILOSOPHER: Yes. It is a series of moments called ‘now’. We can live only in the here and now. Our lives exist only 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 university, big company, stable household—is a happy life. But life is not made up of lines or anything like that.

Life is a series of moments, and neither the past nor the future exist.

Please do not confuse being earnest with being too serious. YOUTH: Be earnest, but not too serious. PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. 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.

if ‘I’ change, the world will change. This means that the world can be changed only by me and no one else will change it for me. The world that has appeared to me since learning of Adlerian psychology is not the world I once knew.

YOUTH: Ah, if only I’d known! I wish I had known this ten years ago, or even just five years ago. If only I had known five years ago, before I got a job … PHILOSOPHER: 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.

Wanting to live sincerely is an important thing, but it is not enough on its own. Adler tells us that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems. But if one does not know how to build good interpersonal relationships, one may end up trying to satisfy other people’s expectations. And, unable to communicate out of fear of hurting other people even when one has something to assert, one may end up abandoning what one really wants to do.