The Courage to be Happy: True Contentment Is In Your Power

by Ichiro Kishimi

The objective of education, in a word, is ‘self-reliance’.

What is respect? Here is a definition: ‘Respect denotes the ability to see a person as he is; to be aware of his unique individuality.’ These are the words of the social psychologist Erich Fromm, who moved from Germany to America to escape Nazi persecution around the same time as Adler.

Place value on the person being that person without pushing your own value system on them. And further, assist in their growth or unfolding.

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.’

Empathy is a skill, an attitude that one has when walking side by side with another.

we are not creatures who are determined by past events. Rather, we determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those events.

With regard to memory, think of it like this: from the innumerable events that have happened in a person’s past, that person chooses only those events that are compatible with the present goals, gives meaning to them and turns them into memories. And conversely, events that run counter to the present goals are erased.

The five stages of problem behaviour. It certainly is an interesting analysis. First you look for admiration and then go all out to get people’s attention, and when that doesn’t work, you start power struggles, which then turns into heinous revenge. And lastly, make a show of your own incompetence.

What should I do from now on?’

Put cooperation with others above all else, instead of competition with others.

Instead of seeking approval, one has to approve oneself, with one’s own mind.

Having another person decide the worth of ‘me’—that is dependence. Or, determining the worth of ‘me’ oneself—which is called self-reliance. If one were to ask which choice leads to a happy life, the answer should be clear. Your worth is not decided by someone else.

LOVE IS A TASK ACCOMPLISHED BY TWO PEOPLE

in order to be happy, we have to take steps within our interpersonal relationships. All human problems are interpersonal relationship problems. And all human happiness is interpersonal relationship happiness.

One upholds ‘us’ as being higher than ‘me’ or ‘you’. One maintains that order in all one’s choices in life. One does not give precedence to the happiness of ‘me’, and one is not satisfied with only the happiness of ‘you’. Unless it is the happiness of two of ‘us’, it has no meaning. Such is the ‘task accomplished by two people’.

Love is a task accomplished by two people. Through love, two people accomplish a happy life. Then, why does love connect to happiness? In a word, it is because love is liberation from ‘me’.

‘Loving someone is not simply an intense emotion. It is a decision, it is a judgement, it is a promise.’

‘Live earnestly here and now.’