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YOUTH: Yes, I remember them. There are the following two objectives for behaviour: 1. To be self-reliant 2. To live in harmony with society And there are the following two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviours: 1. The consciousness that I have the ability 2. The consciousness that people are my comrades
Regarding ‘social feeling’, Adler liked to use the following expression: what we need is ‘Seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another.’
Say, for example, that there is a student who never even tries to study. Questioning the student by saying ‘Why don’t you study?’ is an attitude completely lacking in respect.
However, precisely because they are human beings, one must pay them the highest level of respect. One does not look down at them, and neither does one look up at them or flatter them. One interacts with them as equals and has empathy for their interests and concerns.
PHILOSOPHER: To put it more bluntly, in order to justify a ‘myself now’ that is far from ideal, you are painting your entire past the same shade of grey. You are trying to think of it as ‘that school’s fault’ or ‘because that teacher was there’. And then, you are trying to live in possibility: ‘If it had been the ideal school and I’d met the ideal teacher, I never would have ended up this way.’
The first stage of problem behaviour is the ‘demand for admiration’.
The second stage of problem behaviour is ‘attention drawing’.
PHILOSOPHER: Let’s figure this out step by step. First of all, we humans usually communicate through language, right? YOUTH: Yes. Like we are talking to each other right now. PHILOSOPHER: Then, what would you say is the goal, or objective, of communication? YOUTH: I’d say it’s transmission of intention—the conveying of what is on one’s mind. PHILOSOPHER: No. Conveying is nothing more than the gateway of communication. The final objective is the establishment of consensus. Conveying does not have meaning on its own. It is only when the content of what is conveyed has been understood and a
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‘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.’
Yes. Rather than expecting gratitude from the students, one has the feeling of contribution that one has been able to contribute to the grand objective of self-reliance. One finds happiness in the feeling of contribution. That is the only way.
As I surely said to you three years ago, the essence of happiness is the feeling of contribution. If you are hoping to receive gratitude from your students—if ‘It’s thanks to you that . . .’ are words you are waiting to hear—then please know that, in effect, you are standing in the way of their self-reliance.
As Fromm says, ‘While one is consciously afraid of not being loved, the real, though usually unconscious fear is that of loving.’ And then he continues by stating, ‘To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.’
PHILOSOPHER: That the world is simple, and life is too. But also, that ‘Keeping it simple is difficult.’ It is there that the passage of nothing days become one’s trial.
In real life, however, the trials of nothing days begin only after one has embarked on that first step. What is really being tested is one’s courage to keep walking on one’s path. Just as it is in philosophy.
