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January 18 - February 1, 2020
‘I know that I know nothing.’
In Adlerian psychology, all people are regarded as beings who live their lives with the desire to escape from their helpless conditions and improve themselves. That is to say, in the ‘pursuit of superiority’. The toddling baby learns how to stand on two legs, acquires language and becomes able to communicate with the people around him. In other words, what all people are seeking is ‘freedom’, from their helpless and unfree conditions, and ‘self-reliance’. These are fundamental desires.
human knowledge is not the kind of knowledge that is gained from books—it is something that can only be learned by actually being engaged in relationships with other people. In that sense, one could say that the school, in which one is surrounded by large numbers of other people, is a more meaningful place of education than the home.
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
‘Respect denotes the ability to see a person as he is; to be aware of his unique individuality.’
‘Respect means the concern that the other person should grow and unfold as he is.’
Not trying to change or manipulate the other person who is right there in front of you. Accepting that person as he is without setting any conditions. There is no greater respect than this. Then, on being accepted by another person ‘as one is’, one is likely to gain a great courage. And respect may also be regarded as the starting point of encouragement.
PHILOSOPHER: In this world, no matter how powerful one is, there are two things that cannot be forced. YOUTH: What are they? PHILOSOPHER: ‘Respect’ and ‘love’.
‘Seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another and feeling with the heart of another.’
PHILOSOPHER: Yes. What is generally thought of as empathy, that is to say, agreeing with another person’s opinion and sharing their feelings, is just sympathy, not empathy. Empathy is a skill, an attitude that one has when walking side by side with another. YOUTH: A skill! Empathy is a skill? PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. And since it is a skill, it is something that you, too, can attain.
‘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.’
Adler elucidates, ‘Community feeling is always a reflection of the weakness of the body, and one from which we cannot be separate.’
In Adlerian psychology, a human being’s most fundamental need is the sense of belonging. In a word, we do not want to be isolated. We want to have the real feeling that ‘It’s okay to be here.’ Because isolation leads to social death and eventually even to biological death.
instead of placing worth on being different from people, place worth on being yourself. That is true individuality. A way of living in which, instead of being yourself, you compare yourself to others and try to accentuate only your difference is just a way of living in which you deceive both others and yourself.
Praising gives rise to the principle of competition within the community and implants in the child a lifestyle, or worldview, of ‘other people are my enemies’.
Adler makes the following statement with regard to friendship: ‘In friendship, we see with the eyes of another, listen with the ears of another and feel with the heart of another.’
Work relationships are relationships of ‘trust’, and friend relationships are relationships of ‘confidence’.
the division of labour begins by trusting others regardless of one’s likes and dislikes. We cannot live if we don’t divide up the labour. We cannot live if we don’t cooperate with other people—which is another way of saying that we cannot live without trusting others. This is the division of labour relationship and the work relationship.
one cannot have confidence in someone whom one does not respect.
For better or for worse, that is the only place we can start from. If one wants to rid the world of conflict, one has to free oneself from conflict first. If you wish your students would believe in you, you need to believe in your students first. Instead of engaging in the whole story while leaving oneself out of it, one takes the first step as a part of the whole.
‘feeling of contribution’. All we need is the subjective sense that ‘I am of use to someone’, or, in other words, a ‘feeling of contribution’. There is no need to look for any other basis. Try to find happiness in the feeling of contribution. Try to find joy in the feeling of contribution.
Self-reliance is ‘breaking away from self-centredness’.
We must not become destiny’s servants. We must be the masters of our destinies. Rather than seeking a destined person, we build relationships of a kind that might be referred to as destined.
As Fromm says, ‘Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.’ Adler, in place of this ‘faith’, would use the word ‘courage’. You were of little courage. So, you were able to love only a little. Not possessing the courage to love, you tried to stay in the lifestyle of your childhood, the lifestyle of being loved. That is all.
Love is all. The person who lives wanting an easy life or looking for the easy way may find fleeting pleasures, but they will not be able to grasp real happiness. It is only by loving another person that we are liberated from self-centredness. It is only by loving another person that we can achieve self-reliance. And it is only by loving another person that we arrive at community feeling.
‘The world is simple, and life is too.’ ‘But keeping it simple is difficult, and it is there that the passage of days become one’s trial.’
