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February 9 - February 21, 2025
it is one’s instinctive desires, one’s impulsive desires.
There may be a person who does not think well of you, but that is not your task. And again, thinking things like, He should like me, or I’ve done all this, so it’s strange that he doesn’t like me, is the reward-oriented way of thinking of having intervened in another person’s tasks.
a way of living in which one is constantly troubled by how one is seen by others is a self-centred lifestyle in which one’s sole concern is with the ‘I’.
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’.
hierarchical relationship—the vertical relationship—that is behind the praising. 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.
horizontal relationships.
The more one is praised by another person, the more one
forms the belief that one has no ability.
Being praised essentially means that one is receiving judgement from another person as ‘good’.
‘Thank you’, on the other hand, rather than being judgement, is a clear expression of gratitude.
even if you’re judged as ‘good’ by another person,
you don’t feel that you’ve made a contribution?
what does a person have to do to get courage?
‘It is only when a person is able to feel that he has worth that he can possess courage.’
It is when one is able to feel I am beneficial to the community that one can have a true sense of one’s worth.
Suppose that as a result of following your boss’s instructions, your work ends in failure. Whose responsibility is it then?
That is a life-lie. 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—and you are being dependent on vertical relationships.
Concretely speaking, it’s making the switch from attachment to self (self-interest) to concern for others (social interest), and gaining a sense of community feeling. Three things are needed at this point: ‘self-acceptance’, ‘confidence in others’ and ‘contribution to others’.
Accept what is irreplaceable. Accept ‘this me’ just as it is. And have the courage to change what one can change. That is self-acceptance.
you’re saying that to feel ‘it’s okay to be here’ one has to see others as comrades. And that to see others as comrades, one needs both self-acceptance and confidence in others.
Contribution to others?
Is to act, in some way, on one’s comrades. To attempt to contribute. That is ‘contribution to others’.
The most easily understood contribution to others is probably work. To be in society and join the workforce.
They work so they are able to contribute to others, and also to confirm their sense of belonging, their feeling that ‘it’s okay to be here’.
accepting one’s irreplaceable
Confidence in others:
‘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.’
not everyone in the world is a good and virtuous person. One goes
through any number of unpleasant experiences in one’s interpersonal relations.
in every instance, it is ‘that person’ who attacks you wh...
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People with neurotic lifestyles tend to sprinkle their speech with such words as ‘everyone’ and ‘always’ and ‘everything’. ‘Everyone hates me,’ they will say, or ‘It’s always me who takes a loss,’ or ‘Everything is wrong.’ If you think you might be in the...
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way of living in which one sees only a part of things, but judges the whole.
In the teachings of Judaism, one finds the following anecdote: ‘If there are ten people, one will be someone who criticises you no matter what you do. This person will come to dislike you, and you will not learn to like him either. Then, there will be two others who accept everything about you and whom you accept too, and you will become close friends with them. The remaining seven people will be neither of these types.’ Now, do you focus on the one person who dislikes you? Do you pay more attention to the two who love you? Or would you focus on the crowd, the other seven? A person who is
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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 childrearing, to one’s friendships and hobbies and so on; Adler does not recognise ways of living in which certain aspects are unusually dominant.
For a human being, the greatest unhappiness is not being able to like oneself.
people can only be truly aware of their worth when they are able to feel ‘I am of use to someone’.
happiness is the feeling of contribution.
To live earnestly and conscientiously?
Living earnestly here and now is itself a dance. One must not get too serious.
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.
The greatest life-lie of all is to not live here and now.
fearlessly shine a bright spotlight on here and now. That is something you can do.
‘Whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual.’
give you the words of Adler: ‘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.’
Ichiro Kishimi’s Adorā Shinrigaku Nyūmon (Introduction to Adlerian Psychology).
