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May 28 - June 9, 2025
‘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.’
The first step to change is knowing.
no matter how much you want to be Y, you cannot be reborn as him. You are not Y. It’s okay for you to be you.
To quote Adler again: ‘The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment.’
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’. Our world is rife with injustices and misdeeds of all kinds, yet there is not one person who desires evil in the purest sense of the word; that is to say something ‘not beneficial’.
Lifestyle is the tendencies of thought and action in life.
Although there are some small inconveniences and limitations, you probably think that the lifestyle you have now is the most practical one, and that it’s just easier to leave things as they are. If you stay just like this, experience enables you to respond properly to events as they occur, while guessing the results of one’s actions.
On the other hand, if one chooses a new lifestyle, no one can predict what might happen to the new self, or have any idea how to deal with events as they arise. It will be hard to see ahead to the future, and life will be filled with anxiety. A more painful and unhappy life might lie ahead. Simply put, people have various complaints about things, but it’s easier and more secure to be just the way one is.
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.
One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.
He wants to live inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time, or that he could write if he just had the proper environment, and that he really does have the talent for it.
But don’t forget, it’s basically impossible to not get hurt in your relations with other people. When you enter into interpersonal relationships, it is inevitable that to a greater or lesser extent you will get hurt, and you will hurt someone, too. 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.
being alone isn’t what makes you feel lonely. Loneliness is having other people and society and community around you, and having a deep sense of being excluded from them. To feel lonely, we need other people. That is to say, it is only in social contexts that a person becomes an ‘individual’.
all problems are interpersonal relationship problems.
there is one good thing about subjectivity: it allows you to make your own choice.
We cannot alter objective facts. But subjective interpretations can be altered as much as one likes. And we are inhabitants of a subjective world.
The value given to a one-dollar bill is not an objectively attributed value, though that might be a commonsense approach. If one considers its actual cost as printed material, the value is nowhere near a dollar. If I were the only person in this world and no one else existed, I’d probably be putting those one-dollar bills in my fireplace in wintertime.
One holds up various ideals or goals, and heads toward them. However, on not being able to reach one’s ideals, one harbours a sense of being lesser.
There’s no doubt about it—if the feeling of inferiority is strong, most people will become negative and say, ‘I’m not good enough anyway.’ Because that’s what a feeling of inferiority is.
At base, ‘complex’ refers to an abnormal mental state made up of a complicated group of emotions and ideas, and has nothing to do with the feeling of inferiority.
Those who go so far as to boast about things out loud actually have no confidence in themselves. As Adler clearly indicates, ‘The one who boasts does so only out of a feeling of inferiority.’
Adler himself pointed out, ‘In our culture weakness can be quite strong and powerful.’
Adler says, ‘In fact, if we were to ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture, the logical answer would be the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated.’ The baby rules over the adults with his weakness. And it is because of this weakness that no one can control him.
Adler does not uphold such attitudes, of course. Rather, he’s saying that on the same level playing field, there are people who are moving forward, and there are people who are moving forward behind them. Keep that image in mind. Though the distance covered and the speed of walking differ, everyone is walking equally in the same flat place. The pursuit of superiority is the mindset of taking a single step forward on one’s own feet, not the mindset of competition of the sort that necessitates aiming to be greater than other people.
there is no need to compare oneself with others.
A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to others, but from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self.
Human beings are all equal, but not the same.
When one is trying to be oneself, competition will inevitably get in the way.
If that rival was someone you could call a comrade, it’s possible that it would lead to self-improvement. But, in many cases, a competitor will not be your comrade.
If there is competition at the core of a person’s interpersonal relationships, he will not be able to escape interpersonal relationship problems or escape misfortune.
at the end of a competition, there are winners and losers.
When one is conscious of competition and victory and defeat, it is inevitable that feelings of inferiority will arise. Because one is constantly comparing oneself to others and thinking, I beat that person or I lost to that person. The inferiority complex and the superiority complex are extensions of that.
This is what is so terrifying about competition. Even if you’re not a loser, even if you’re someone who keeps on winning, if you are someone who has placed himself in competition, you will never have a moment’s peace. You don’t want to be a loser. And you always have to keep on winning if you don’t want to be a loser. You can’t trust other people. The reason that so many people don’t really feel happy while they’re building up their success in the eyes of society is that they are living in competition. Because to them, the world is a perilous place that is overflowing with enemies.
‘You’re the only one who’s worried how you look.’
There is a difference between personal anger (personal grudge) and indignation with regard to society’s contradictions and injustices (righteous indignation). Personal anger soon cools. Righteous indignation, on the other hand, lasts for a long time. Anger as an expression of a personal grudge is nothing but a tool for making others submit to you.
righteous indignation goes beyond one’s own interests.
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.
We have language. We can communicate through language. Believe in the power of language, and the language of logic.
The moment one is convinced that ‘I am right’ in an interpersonal relationship, one has already stepped into a power struggle.
Adler made three categories of the interpersonal relationships that arise out of these processes. He referred to them as ‘tasks of work’, ‘tasks of friendship’ and ‘tasks of love’, and all together as ‘life tasks’.
The interpersonal relationships that a single individual has no choice but to confront when attempting to live as a social being—these are the life tasks. They are indeed tasks in the sense that one has no choice but to confront them.
When a friend relationship has turned into love, speech and conduct that was permitted between friends may no longer be permitted the moment they become lovers.
line from a novel by Dostoevsky: ‘Money is coined freedom.’
We human beings live in constant need of recognition from others.
It’s through being recognised by others that each of us can truly feel we have value.
Why is it that people seek recognition from others? In many cases, it is due to the influence of reward-and-punishment education.
Adler was very critical of education by reward and punishment. It leads to mistaken lifestyles in which people think, If no one is going to praise me, I won’t take appropriate action and If no one is going to punish me, I’ll engage in inappropriate actions, too.
In the teachings of Judaism, one finds a view that goes something like this: if 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.
When one seeks recognition from others, and concerns oneself only with how one is judged by others, in the end, one is living other people’s lives.
Wishing so hard to be recognised will lead to a life of following expectations held by other people who want you to be ‘this kind of person’.
