The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

by Ichiro Kishimi

religion has lost its power and now there is no real belief in God. With nothing to rely on, everyone is filled with anxiety and doubt. Everyone is living for themselves.

the world is complicated. It’s because you are making the world complicated.

None of us live in an objective world, but instead in a subjective world that we ourselves have given meaning to. The world you see is different from the one I see, and it’s impossible to share your world with anyone else.

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.

it is fair to say that Adlerian psychology is clearly in line with Greek philosophy, and that it is a proper field of study.

rather than being a strict area of scholarship, Adlerian psychology is accepted as a realisation; a culmination of truths and of human understanding.

If we focus only on past causes and try to explain things solely through cause and effect, we end up with ‘determinism’. Because what this says is that our present and our future have already been decided by past occurrences, and are unalterable. Am I wrong?

in Adlerian psychology, we do not think about past ‘causes’, but rather about present ‘goals’.

Your friend had the goal of not going out beforehand, and he’s been manufacturing a state of anxiety and fear as a means to achieve that goal. In Adlerian psychology, this is called ‘teleology’.

Supposing you’ve got a cold with a high fever, and you’ve gone to see the doctor. Then, suppose the doctor says the reason for your sickness is that yesterday, when you went out, you weren’t dressed well enough, and that’s why you’ve caught a cold. Now, would you be satisfied with that?

‘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.’

Your life is not something that someone gives you, but something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.

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 aetiology, you will be bound by the past and never be able to find happiness.

‘People are not driven by past causes, but move toward goals that they themselves set’—that was the philosopher’s claim.

‘The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment.’

We are not replaceable machines. It is not replacement we need, but renewal.

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’.

At some stage in your life, you chose ‘being unhappy’. It is not because you were born into unhappy circumstances or ended up in an unhappy situation. It’s that you judged ‘being unhappy’ to be good for you.

Lifestyle is the tendencies of thought and action in life.

In a narrow sense, lifestyle could be defined as someone’s personality; taken more broadly, it is a word that encompasses the worldview of that person and their outlook on life.

Adlerian psychology, however, lifestyle is thought of as something that you choose for yourself.

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.

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.

you say that one should take the stance of teleology, as opposed to Freudian aetiology; that one must not search for causes in one’s past, and should deny trauma. You say that people act to achieve some goal or other, instead of being creatures who are driven by causes in their past.

‘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.

You notice only your shortcomings because you’ve resolved to not start liking yourself. In order to not like yourself, you don’t see your strong points, and focus only on your shortcomings.

Adler says, ‘To get rid of one’s problems, all one can do is live in the universe all alone.’ But one can’t do such a thing.