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The first thing that I want you to understand here is the fact that anger is a form of communication, and that communication is nevertheless possible without using anger. We can convey our thoughts and intentions and be accepted without any need for anger. If you learn to understand this experientially, the anger emotion will stop appearing, all on its own.
Admitting mistakes, conveying words of apology, and stepping down from power struggles—none of these things is defeat. The pursuit of superiority is not something that is carried out through competition with other people.
First, there are two objectives for behaviour: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. Then, the objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviours are
the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.
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.
If other people are our comrades, and we live surrounded by them, we should be able to find in that life our own place of ‘refuge’. Moreover, in doing so, we should begin to have the desire to share with our comrades—to contribute to the community. This sense of others as comrades, this awareness of ‘having one’s own refuge’, is called ‘community feeling’.
When we run into difficulties in our interpersonal relations, or when we can no longer see a way out, what we should consider first and foremost is the principle that says ‘listen to the voice of the larger community’.
The most important thing is to not judge other people. Judgement 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.
is about having concern for others, building horizontal relationships and taking the approach of encouragement. All these things connect to the deep life awareness of ‘I am of use to someone’, and in turn, to your courage to live.
‘The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment.’
‘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.’ It’s in the novel Slaughterhouse-Five.
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.
on me ever since that day, of course. Here it is: ‘The two objectives for behaviour: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. The two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviours: the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.’
people can only be truly aware of their worth when they are able to feel ‘I am of use to someone’. However, it doesn’t matter if the contribution one makes at such a time is without any visible form. It is enough to have the subjective sense of being of use to someone, that is to say, a feeling of contribution. And then, the philosopher arrives at the following conclusion: happiness is the feeling of contribution.
Life is a series of moments, and neither the past nor the future exist.
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.
‘Someone has to start. Other people might not be cooperative, but that is not connected to you.
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.
