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May 28 - June 9, 2025
if you get that recognition, would you say that you’ve really found happiness? Do people who have established their social status truly feel happy?
When trying to be recognised by others, almost all people treat satisfying other people’s expectations as the means to that end. And that is in accordance with the stream of thought of reward-and-punishment education that says one will be praised if one takes appropriate action.
In general, all interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other people’s tasks, or having one’s own tasks intruded on. Carrying out the separation of tasks is enough to change one’s interpersonal relationships dramatically.
There is a simple way to tell whose task it is. Think, Who ultimately is going to receive the end result brought about by the choice that is made?
‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.’
Children do not become what their parents want them to become.
other people are not living to satisfy your expectations.
If you are leading a life of worry and suffering—which stems from interpersonal relationships—first, learn the boundary of ‘from here on, that is not my task’. And discard other people’s tasks. That is the first step toward lightening the load and making life simpler.
All you can do with regard to your own life is choose the best path that you believe in. On the other hand, what kind of judgement do other people pass on that choice? That is the task of other people, and is not a matter you can do anything about.
If one is living in a such a way as to satisfy other people’s expectations, and one is entrusting one’s own life to others, that is a way of living in which one is lying to oneself, and continuing that lying to include the people around one.
A stone is powerless. Once it has begun to roll downhill, it will continue to roll until released from the natural laws of gravity and inertia.
We are beings who are capable of resisting inclination. We can stop our tumbling selves and climb uphill. The desire for recognition is probably a natural desire. So, are you going to keep rolling downhill in order to receive recognition from others? Are you going to wear yourself down like a rolling stone, until everything is smoothed away? When all that is left is a little round ball, would that be ‘the real I’?
It’s that you are disliked by someone. It is proof that you are exercising your freedom and living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in accordance with your own principles.
One wants to satisfy one’s desire for recognition. But conducting oneself in such a way as to not be disliked by anyone is an extremely unfree way of living, and is also impossible. There is a cost incurred when one wants to exercise one’s freedom. And the cost of freedom in interpersonal relationships is that one is disliked by other people.
‘Not wanting to be disliked’ is probably my task, but whether or not so-and-so dislikes me is the other person’s task. Even if there is a person who doesn’t think well of me, I cannot intervene in that. To borrow from the proverb I mentioned earlier, naturally one would make the effort to lead a horse to water. But whether he drinks or not is that person’s task.
The courage to be happy also includes the courage to be disliked.
But if I can think, I brought out the memory of being hit because I don’t want my relationship with my father to get better, then I will be holding the card to repair relations. Because if I can just change the goal that fixes everything.
When one is tied to the desire for recognition, the interpersonal relationship cards will always stay in the hands of other people. Does one entrust the cards of life to another person, or hold onto them oneself?
Adlerian psychology is formally referred to as ‘individual psychology’.
Adler was opposed to any kind of dualistic value system that treated the mind as separate from the body; reason as separate from emotion, or the conscious mind as separate from the unconscious mind.
One would never think of emotions that somehow exist independently—unrelated to one’s intentions, as it were—as having produced that shouting voice.
Community feeling is also referred to as ‘social interest’, that is to say, ‘interest in society’.
People who are incapable of carrying out the separation of tasks, and who are obsessed with the desire for recognition are also extremely self-centred.
In the sense that you are concerned solely with the ‘I’, you are self-centred. You want to be thought well of by others, and that is why you worry about the way they look at you. That is not concern for others. It is nothing but attachment to self.
that is precisely why it is necessary to make the switch from ‘attachment to self’ to ‘concern for others’.
But what happens when a globe is used to represent the world? Because with a globe, you can look at the world with France at the centre, or China, or Brazil for that matter. Every place is central, and no place is, at the same time. The globe may be dotted with an infinite number of centres, in accordance with the viewer’s location and angle of view. That is the nature of a globe.
Our world is a globe, not a map that has been cut out on a plane.
a sense of belonging is something that one can attain only by making an active commitment to the community of one’s own accord, and not simply by being here.
If you are ‘the centre of the world’, you will have no thoughts whatsoever regarding commitment to the community; because everyone else is ‘someone who will do something for me’, and there is no need for you to do things yourself. But you are not the centre of the world, and neither am I. One has to stand on one’s own two feet, and take one’s own steps forward with the tasks of interpersonal relations. One needs to think not What will this person give me? but, rather, What can I give to this person?
A sense of belonging is something that one acquires through one’s own efforts—it is not something one is endowed with at birth.
Each person belongs to a separate community. And when it comes down to it, all of us belong to the community of the earth, and the community of the universe.
People are never truly alone or separate from community, and cannot be.
The community Adler speaks of goes beyond things we can see, like our households and societies, to include those connections that we cannot see.
In the act of praise, there is the aspect of it being ‘the passing of judgement by a person of ability on a person of no ability’.
the mother who praises the child by saying things like ‘You’re such a good helper!’ or ‘Good job!’ or ‘Well, aren’t you something!’ is unconsciously creating a hierarchical relationship and seeing the child as beneath her.
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.
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.
Resignation has the connotation of seeing clearly with fortitude and acceptance. Having a firm grasp on the truth of things—that is resignation. There is nothing pessimistic about it.
But look at it from the standpoint of someone who has been taken advantage of. There are people who will continue to believe in you unconditionally even if you are the one who has taken advantage of them. People who will have confidence in you no matter how they are treated.
As long as you are looking with doubt in your eyes, everything around you will appear to be evidence that she is cheating on you. Even if she is not.
Contribution to others does not connote self-sacrifice. Adler goes so far as to warn that those who sacrifice their own lives for others are people who have conformed to society too much.
we are truly aware of our own worth only when we feel that our existence and behaviour are beneficial to the community, that is to say, when one feels, ‘I am of use to someone.’
I would rather believe in the villain who is honest about his desires, than the good guy who tells a pack of lies.
Dostoevsky quote you happened upon —‘Money is coined freedom.’
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’.
Wealthy people who, on having amassed a great fortune, focus their energies on charitable activities, are doing so in order to attain a sense of their own worth and confirm for themselves that ‘it’s okay to be here’.
if I’m humming away to myself and washing the dishes in good spirits, the children might come and give me a hand. At the very least, I’d be creating an atmosphere in which it is easier for them to offer their help.
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 habit of using such generalising statements, you should be careful.
‘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.’
‘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.
