The Courage to be Disliked

Favourite Quotes

“The world you see is different from the one I see, and it’s impossible to share your world with anyone else.” p. xv

“If you are not living your life for yourself, then who is going to live it for you?” p. 118

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” p. 211

Summary

Introduction

• The philosopher believes in 3 points, pg xiii:
  • people can change (their perceptions)
  • the world is simple
  • everyone can be happy
• “None of us live in an objective world, but instead in a subjective world that we ourselves have given meaning to.” p. xv
  • religious folks have religion to bring objectivity to the world for them. That means, for people without religion they need to create their own objectivity of some sort, which is possible of course, but can be a difficult task
• “The world you see is different from the one I see, and it’s impossible to share your world with anyone else.” p. xv
  • They say, everyone has their own subjective truth. There is definitely truth in that statement. Everyone’s perception is fundamentally different. You can’t expect everyone to view things the same way.
• Nice analogy on perception pg xvi
  • “The issue is not about how the world is, but about how you are.” This means that you can change yourself in order to perceive things differently. In that moment, the well water can seem cold or warm to you depending on the season. But the well water is the same temp all year round. To you, it seems like an undeniable fact that the water is cold or warm, but this is just your perception. You can train yourself to view this differently - not by changing your environment, but by changing yourself, or more accurately, changing your perception. And this requires courage which the philosopher goes into later.
• “People can change” is in reference to their perceptions. Example given is if you were looking at the world wearing dark glasses. Your whole world will be dark. To change means to take off the glasses, which requires courage.

The First Night: Deny Trauma

The Unknown Third Giant

• This is reference to Adler being relatively unknown among the giants, Freud and Jung

Why People Can Change

• “Who I am now is determined by occurrences in the past.” p. 10
  • The philosopher wasn’t affirming this, but it is very true, not completely, but still a little. The philosopher expounds this on pg 10 and the criticisms against it.
• In Adlerian psychology, it’s not about the past, rather it’s about the present. This is teleology, rather than etiology.

Trauma does not Exist

• In Adlerian psychology, trauma is rejected. Trauma does not exist.
• “No (traumatic) 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.” p. 13
  • i.e. we can mold our past experiences and trauma to mean anything we want in the present. It’s in our hands how we shape our traumas.
  • in other words, the self is determined NOT by the experiences (trauma) itself, but rather by the MEANING we give to those experiences
• Adlerian psych affirms that past traumas have an impact on your personality, but it rejects that things are determined by those past traumas/experiences.

People Fabricate Anger

• The philosopher argues that anger is a created emotion. It is created to be used as a tool to achieve some goal. He gives a great analogy on pg 18.

How to Live Without Being Controlled by the Past

• The argument against the previous point is, if emotions are created tools, then human emotion is being denied, therefore we are just machines - this is a nihilist view of humanity.
  • the philosopher responds that emotions exist and we have them, but we are also able to resist emotion. Meaning, we’re able to control our emotions
• The key to changing is to not be controlled by the past. Our past has already happened, we cannot change that, but we can assign any kind of meaning to those past events however we like.
  • This is where Freudian psych failed, because it focused on someone’s past
• In order for us to change, it is necessary that we accept that we are not controlled by our past.

Unhappiness is Something you Choose for Yourself

• Look at ‘good’ and ‘evil’ not as a moral thing, but rather as ‘beneficial’ and ‘not beneficial’, which is the way the ancient Greeks viewed it. So people who do evil are doing things not beneficial to them. Similarly, a murderer, in their own perspective, is doing something good because their act brings some benefit (rarely do people do things that is not beneficial to them in the truest sense)
• In the case of happiness, people who are unhappy chose it because it was good for them, i.e. brought a benefit

People Always Choose Not to Change

• your personality and disposition is not a static thing, it can change. After all, you chose your personality. Adlerian psych states that this occurs at age 10. So if you chose it once, you can choose it again.
• personality & disposition is a part of your lifestyle
• “I am a pessimist” (personality) = “I have a pessimistic view of the world”
  • when you frame it the second way, it seems a lot easier to change.
• Change is scary. No one wants change. Even if someone is unhappy and wants to change, they usually don’t because changing requires great courage.

Your Life is Decided Here and Now

• to sum up the first chapter, your life is not determined by the past.
• If your unhappy, or have problems, there’s something wrong with your lifestyle. Remember, lifestyle also includes your personality and disposition, and it includes the way you give meaning to the world.
• A big mistake people get themselves is into is the “if only” game. Ex: “if only I had more time”, “If only I had more money”, “If only I was like that guy”, etc. These are all excuses. You’re making excuses for yourself.
  • Many times this is rooted in the lack of self-confidence, or more accurately the lack of courage. Lets say you’re working towards a goal but can’t reach it and your using “if only I had more time” as an excuse. Most likely time is NOT the issue here, rather you’re scared of failure. You’re scared you’ll expose yourself. You’re scared that you’ll be criticized. If you don’t pursue you’re goal, you’ll never know if you’re a failure, and this brings comfort to most people. The solution to this is having courage.

The Second Night: All Problems are Interpersonal Relationship Problems

Why You Dislike Yourself

• We fabricate our current state in order to avoid something else.
  • The youth dislikes himself, and only notices his shortcomings and faults. Thus, he stays away from everyone. Why hasn’t he started liking himself? Because this feeling of dislike for himself is a shield against being disliked by other people
  • Also, only noticing your shortcomings/faults protects you against the case where people insult you. Essentially you’ll justify it to yourself by saying “if only I didn’t have this shortcoming, I would be loved”, etc
• The key here is to remember that all interpersonal relationships have problems. You will get hurt, and you will hurt someone else. But this is life.

All Problems are Interpersonal Relationship Problems

• If everyone disappeared and you were alone in the universe, all of your problems would disappear. This means that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems

Feelings of Inferiority are Subjective Assumptions

• a lot of our problems stem from our value judgments. So to fix the problem, we must alter our value judgments.
  • ex: the philosopher tells his own story of growing up he felt inferior due to his short height. But as he grew up, he learned to attribute a positive value to being short because it helps him in his job as a therapist - people are willing to be open with a smaller and shorter man rather than an intimidating looking one.
• Typically, we compare ourselves to others which alters our value judgments. We must stop comparing ourselves to others in order to fix our value judgments.
• Remember, value judgments are subjective. You and only you can assign meaning to your issues.
  • ex: being short is an objective fact, but the meaning of being short is completely subjective. You can decide if being short is an advantageous thing or not.
• Your values are, again, a problem of interpersonal relationship. If you were alone in the universe, your values would be very different.
  • Ex: you’d be using $100 bills to blow your nose if you were alone in the universe, cause values are based on social context.
  • This affirms the fact that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems.

An Inferiority Complex is an Excuse

• feelings of inferiority are not bad, rather they are natural and necessary stimulants to healthy living and growth
  • we’re all trying to pursue superiority, which leaves us feeling inferior to a certain degree.
• feeling inferior is normal, and should be used to help you improve. The problem lies when you do not have the courage to take the first step to improve. This leaves you in a stagnant state of inferiority.
• feeling of inferiority vs inferiority complex
  • inferiority complex = saying “I’m not good enough anyways” as an excuse to leave yourself in a state of inferiority. This is harmful.
    • Example: “I’m not well educated so I can’t succeed.”
  • feeling of inferiority = feeling less than. Understanding that you have room to grow and improve and are currently not in the best state. This is normal and can be used as a trigger for growth.
    • Example: “I’m not well educated so I’ll have to try harder.”

Braggarts Have Feelings of Inferiority

• The best way to cope with feeling of inferiority is by striving and growth. Work on improving your inferiority.
• If someone has strong feelings of inferiority and doesn’t have the courage to strive and grow, they may fall into a superiority complex
  • This is another compensation mechanism to feelings of inferiority. The person tries to compensate by acting as if they are superior, this is a fabricated feeling of superiority
• People who boast about their past glory and achievements typically have superiority complexes which is rooted in feelings of inferiority
• people who boast about their misfortunes/suffering also have feeling of inferiority.
  • They use their misfortunes to their advantage to appear “special”. And as long as they keep doing this, they will always need that misfortune, putting them into a vicious cycle where they can never escape their misfortune.

Life is not a Competition

• The pursuit of superiority should not be a competition, we shouldn’t be trying to be superior to other people.
• Some say the feeling of inferiority comes from comparing yourself to others, but this ideally should not be the case. We should rather compares ourselves to our ideal self. This is what drives the pursuit of superiority.
• The counter argument (from the youth) is that having a friend compete with you as a way for you both to improve can lead to great improvement and growth. Essentially he’s saying you can use your interpersonal relationships as a way to grow by competition.

You’re the Only One Worrying About Your Appearance

• the youth is wrong because the friend who you compete with becomes your enemy. At the end of every competition there are winners and losers. And that’s how you’ll view your interpersonal relationships. When one is conscious of this all the time, feeling of inferiority and an inferiority complex will come up in you.
• This type of attitude causes you to lose trust in your relationships, friends, and everyone around you. Because you view everyone around you as an enemy.
• You should celebrate other people’s happiness and successes. If you don’t, this shows you view life and relationships as a competition with winners and losers. So the best first step is to start celebrating other people’s happiness. Next step is to actively help other people to become happy and/or succeed.
• You should be able to truly feel that people are your comrades. This is the best attitude to have.

From Power Struggle to Revenge

• When people provoke you to make you angry, this is commonly a power struggle. They have some end goal.
  • Kids frequently do this with their parents. They will try to push the boundaries as far as they can in order to see what they can get away with. This is a classic power struggle.
  • In these situations the best response is to not get angry.
• The next stage after power struggle is revenge.
  • ex: a child who is oppressed by his parents will try to get revenge on them. They can be some sort of delinquency like not going to school, self-harm, etc. These acts will invoke a reaction from his parents, that’s why he does it.
• Once an interpersonal relationship gets to the revenge stage, it’s almost impossible for either side to find a resolution. To prevent this, when you’re challenged to a power struggle, never engage.

Admitting Fault is not Defeat

• people who are irritable do not have a short temper, rather they do not know any effective communication tools other than anger, so they immediately resort to anger.
• when we view interpersonal relationships as competition, and view any kind of communication as winning or losing, we cloud our judgment and are unable to ever admit we’ve made a mistake cause we view that as defeat.

Overcoming the Tasks That Face You in Life

• Adlerian psych objectives for human behavior and psychology:
  • Two objectives for behavior
    1. to be self-reliant
    2. to live in harmony with society
  • Two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors
    1. the consciousness that I have the ability
    2. the consciousness that people are my comrades
• self-reliance includes being self-reliant mentally, socially, economically, etc
• We can achieve these Adlerian objectives by facing “life tasks”.
• These life tasks consists of the “three social ties”
  1. tasks of work
  2. tasks of friendship
  3. tasks of love
• These are tasks in relation to being a member of society (paying tax, etc) rather these are in terms of interpersonal relationships.
• life task = the interpersonal relationships that an individual must confront when attempting to live as as social being
• Tasks of work
  • every job has some aspect of working with others. Even if you’re an author and write alone all day long, you will have to work and communicate with editors, publishers, etc.
  • Tasks of work has the lowest hurdles when it comes to life tasks, but you still need to be able to build interpersonal relationships in the work place. It has the lowest hurdles because typically everyone has the exact same goal in the workplace. Even if you’re not ‘friends’ with someone, you’ll still work together to achieve the goal.

Red String and Rigid Chains

• Tasks of friendship
  • this is more difficult to create because the obligations of work are not present.
  • having many friends is not necessary. What matters most is the depth of the relationship you have with friends.
• Tasks of love
  • this is the hardest to create
  • this includes love relationships and family relationships
  • love must be based on freedom, not restricting each other
  • “if two people want to live together on good terms, they must treat each other as equal personalities.” p. 98
• love relationships are bound by red string - they can be cut with small scissors easily, but relationship with parents is bound by rigid chains.
  • no matter how difficult your relationship with your parents get, you must not run away. You must not put off dealing with it. You have to face it.

Don’t Fall for the “Life-Lie”

• Life-lie = coming up with excuses to avoid life tasks
  • people typically will create an excuse to avoid interpersonal relationships, i.e. life tasks.
  • ex: a spouse who wants to end the relationship might find fault in their spouse in things they’ve always had, like snoring, the way they dress, habits, etc. But they are only bringing it up now because they’ve made it a goal to “leave the relationship”.
  • ex: you may dislike Mr. A because he has a flaw you cannot forgive. But this isn’t the reason you dislike him, the real reason is because you had the goal of disliking him beforehand. You did this so you could avoid an interpersonal relationship with Mr. A.
  • we create life-lies due to lack of courage

From the Psychology of Possession to the Psychology of Practice

• Adlerian psych is the psychology of practice, use, and courage, NOT of possession like Freudian psych.

The Third Night: Discard Other People’s Tasks

Deny the Desire for Recognition

• Freedom is not money, but money is a type of freedom
• At the heart of many interpersonal relationship issues is the desire for recognition, especially in more complex situations like child-parent relationships.
  • if you’re parents raised you badly, like abused you, physically or emotionally, etc, you may grow up to desire recognition from them.
  • the youth is in this situation. His older brother got all the attention growing up while the youth was put down. But as he got older, he desired recognition from his parents so he followed their wishes in many aspects his life. The youth argues desire for recognition is a universal desire, but it is rejected in Adlerian psych.

Do Not Live to Satisfy the Expectations of Others

• If you were to pickup litter at work, but no one praises you, will you stop? If so, this is wrong. This is based on the reward-and-punishment education model which Adler opposed
• You’re goal should never be to be praised for your actions.
• We are living for ourselves, not to satisfy other people’s expectations.
• “If you are not living your life for yourself, then who is going to live it for you?” p. 118
  • This is a teaching in Judaism
• Many people who are struggling/suffering in life also happen to be suffering trying to meet the expectations of others like their parents, teachers, etc.
• We must live life free of following expectations of others, but we must not behave without regard for others. This is related to the idea of separation of tasks in Adlerian psych.

How to Separate Tasks

• All interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other people’s tasks, or having one’s own tasks intruded on. The solution is to simply stop intruding on other people’s tasks.
• How do we tell whose task something is? We ask ourselves, “who will ultimately receive the result brought about by the choice that is made in the task?”
  • ex: a child’s studies. Making the child study is the task of the parent or the child themselves? It’s the child. Because the outcome of studying will not impact the parents.
• In the previous example, that does not mean the parents should be hands-off or not interfere at all. The parents role is to pay attention at their child. They are responsible for telling the child that studying is their own task. The parent should make themselves available to assist if the child requests help. But the parent should NOT intrude on the child’s task. If the child makes no requests, the parent should NOT meddle in the task.
• “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” p. 125

Discard Other People’s Tasks

• The first step to making life simpler is by discarding other people’s tasks
• If you try to push expectations on your spouse and they do not follow them, how would that feel for you? Would you still love them? Would you start to resent them? So it’s best to NOT push any expectations on anyone. Do not create unnecessary trouble for yourself.
  • How people act with regards to your expectations is NOT your task, it’s other people’s tasks. But this is only when you do NOT push your expectations on anyone else.

How to Rid Yourself of Interpersonal Relationship Problems

• Lets say your parents vehemently oppose your career decision, and they are crying and screaming at you, etc. You must understand that this is NOT your problem/task. Dealing with this emotion is fully your parents task, they must handle their emotion and can choose how to display their disapproval.
• when you worry about other people’s judgment of you, their opinions of you, them looking at you, etc, you are essentially taking their tasks as your own which is making your life harder. These are all NOT your tasks.
• Steps to remove interpersonal relationship problems
  1. Ask, whose task is this?
  2. Perform separation of tasks
  3. Delineate up to what point one’s own tasks go and from what point they become another person’s tasks
  4. Do not intervene in other people’s tasks
  5. Do not allow others to intervene in your own tasks

Cut the Gordian Knot

• Gordian knot = extremely difficult or involved problem
• “Children who have not been taught to confront challenges will try to avoid all challenges.” p. 136

Desire for Recognition Makes You Unfree

• desire for recognition leads you to be shackled by other people’s demands and opinions, this makes you unfree

What Real Freedom Is

• “freedom is being disliked by other people” p. 144
• in order to be liked, you must fall into the desire for recognition. This is an unfree way of living
• essentially the cost of freedom is to be disliked.
• freedom is:
  • being unconcerned by other people’s judgments
  • having no fear of being disliked
  • the chance of never being recognized
• you must live life not fearing the possibility of being disliked.
• obviously you don’t want to be disliked, but you shouldn’t mind if you are. You can’t control other people.
• the courage to be happy = the courage to be disliked

You Hold the Cards to Interpersonal Relationships

The Fourth Night: Where the Center of the World Is

Individual Psychology and Holism

• Adlerian psych is an individual psychology
• Holism = the idea that the whole body is a whole and connected. Emotions are connected to reason, the conscious mind to the unconscious, etc
• Forming good Interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance.

The Goal of Interpersonal Relationships is a Feeling of Community

• Interpersonal relationships are the source of unhappiness, but they are also the source of happiness
• “Community feeling” is the most important index for considering a state of interpersonal relations that is happy
• people around you are either comrades or enemies. Comrades form community
• the smallest unit of community is “you and I”, i.e. two people
  • using this unit, you make the switch from ‘attachment to self (self-interest)’ to ‘concern for others (social interest)‘

Why Am I Only Interested in Myself?

• “The fact that there are people who do not think well of you is proof that you are living in freedom.” p. 166
• attachment to self includes desire for recognition and being concerned what others think about you. Because in this case you are the center of attention. It’s all about the “I”, which is wrong.

You Are Not the Center of the World

• People who concern only over themselves think they are the center of the world
• we are the protagonist of our own lives, we are the “center of our life”. There is nothing wrong with that. But we are NOT the center of the world.
• when we start believing we are the center of the world, we tend to view others as objects, we see a person and say “what can they do for me?“. This ends up pushing people away from us and creating enemies.
• We are a part of a community, not its center.
• a sense of belonging to a community is achieved by making an active commitment to the community. This commitment is completing your own life tasks.

Listen to the Voice of a Larger Community

• Don’t force yourself to stay in a community if you’re unfree in it. Listen to the voice of a larger community.
  • If you’re teacher is harassing you, feel free to leave. The larger community, human society, views you and your teacher the same, as equal humans. So no need to stay in a situation like that.

Do Not Rebuke or Praise

• Vertical relationships (hierarchy) is what drives rebuke or praise based behavior
• We should neither rebuke or praise anyone, including our children, instead we should create horizontal relationships, where everyone is “equal but not the same”.

The Encouragement Approach

• Intervention (intruding on other people’s tasks) is a by-product of vertical relationships
• rather than praise and rebuke, we encourage. This usually comes in the form of offering assistance
  • ex: telling your child to do their studying is intervention. But encouraging them by making yourself available for assistance is the proper way to do it.
• The more one is praised by other people, the more one forms the belief that they have no ability.

How to Feel You Have Value

• words of encouragement (horizontal relationships) = words of gratitude, respect, and joy
• we should not judge others; judgment is a by-product of vertical relationships. Praise and rebuke are forms of judgments.
• if you’re after praise, you won’t be free because praise is given based on one’s own beliefs and values, which may not align with yours. But when words of gratitude are conveyed, this shows that one has made contributions to another person.
  • contributions is an important part of Adlerian psych
• How do we gain courage? Only when a person is able to feel that he has worth, then he can possess courage
• How do we feel that we have worth? When we feel that we are beneficial to the community.
  • That we feel that “I am of use to someone”.
  • When we are viewed as ‘good’ by other people (through praise) we are good according to that other person’s subjective viewpoint. This means nothing to us. Rather if we feel we can make contributions to other people, this is better because this is according to our own viewpoint.
  • Maybe this is why men today feel worthless. Because they aren’t able to contribute to anything.
  • Contributions can be given to community, which includes our family. Being the bread winner for men can provide self-worth, which gives us courage to live.
• To sum up: only when you feel that you are of use to someone will you gain an awareness of your true self-worth, which in turn gives you courage to live.

Exist in the Present

People Cannot Make Proper Use of Self

The Fifth Night: To Live in Earnest in the Here and Now

Excessive Self-Consciousness Stifles the Self

• when you are overly self-conscious, you lose courage in your daily life.

Not Self-Affirmation - Self-Acceptance

• when you gain that sense of community feeling, you need 3 things:
  1. self-acceptance
     • accepting yourself in whatever way you are with whatever capabilities you have. If you can’t do something, move on.
     • This doesn’t mean to give up. It means to move on and try to improve yourself always.
     • change what you can about yourself, and accept what you cannot change.
  2. confidence in others
  3. contribution to others
• “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” p. 211
  • we do not lack ability, rather we lack courage.

The Difference Between Trust and Confidence

• this is in relation to ‘confidence in others’
• trust comes with conditions. Confidence is believing in someone unconditionally.
  • when a bank lends you a loan, they do it based on trust. Meaning, they have some reassurance that you can pay it back, like your salary, co-signer, etc.
• the opposite of confidence of doubt. Imagine if all of your interpersonal relationships were based on doubt. That would not play out well.
• Confidence is the base of all stable relationships
• But, can’t you be taken advantage of if your relationship is based on confidence (unconditional belief)? Yes, but that isn’t your task to worry about, it’s the other person’s.
• If you look at your relationships with doubt, things will appear that are not true.
  • ex: if you have doubts about your partner, lets say you think they are cheating, and you try to find evidence to prove it, you will find it. Because in every little thing you will find something that indicates they are cheating, like their tone of voice, when you can’t contact them, etc. This is the doing of doubt.

The Essence of Work Is a Contribution to the Common Good

• once you have confidence in others, you can become comrades. Then you must contribute to others. Then you will find the feeling of community/belonging
• contributing to others is not about self-sacrifice, it’s actually for ourselves. Because contributing to others makes us feel that we are of use to others, thus making us feel we are worthy.
• Examples of contribution to others:
  • to be in society and join the workforce
  • taking care of one’s household
• the essence of work is not making money, rather it’s about contributing to others making you feel worthy.

Young People Walk Ahead of Adults

• in The Second Night, we discussed the following:
  • Adlerian psych objectives for human behavior and psychology:
    • Two objectives for behavior
      1. to be self-reliant
      2. to live in harmony with society
    • Two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors
      1. the consciousness that I have the ability
      2. the consciousness that people are my comrades
• Points 1 (both of them) correspond to self-acceptance, while points 2 (both of them) correspond to confidence in others and contribution to others.
• the objective of life is community feeling
• do NOT depend on vertical relationships or be afraid of being disliked.

Workaholism Is a Life-Lie

• “If there are ten people, one will be someone who criticizes you no matter what you do… Then, there will be two others who accept everything about you… the remaining seven people will be neither of these types”
  • this is a teaching in Judaism
  • this shows us that we should focus on the two people who we can become comrades with. Neurotic people tend to only think about the one person who dislikes them and say “everything hates me!” or things like that.
• Workaholism is a life-lie because they are using this as an excuse to avoid their other life responsibilities, like taking care of family.
  • this applies for anything that dominates one’s life. You shouldn’t have any particular thing that takes up your whole life, whether it be work, hobbies, friends, etc.

You Can Be Happy Now

• what is happiness? how do we achieve happiness?
  • these were implicitly answered in the above chapters…
  • Happiness is the feeling of contribution!!
  • remember, contribution to others gives us a sense of worthiness, gives us a sense of “I am of use to someone”. This is of course a subjective feeling, but that makes it better since it is us and only us who can determine if we are happy!
• technically speaking, everyone should be happy, because being of use = happiness.
  • Everyone contributes and is of use. There are two levels;
    • level of acts: doing things to contribute
    • level of being: simply existing. Example, your spouse simply existing is a contribution to you. Basically everyone falls in this category.
• so why isn’t everyone happy? Because they don’t have the feeling of contribution.
• seeking recognition is an easy way to gain the feeling of contribution.
  • But this doesn’t mean to aim for the desire for recognition. Cause then you are not free. And you must be free to be happy.
• someone who yearns for the desire for recognition does not have community feeling, has not accepted themselves, and has no confidence in others and contributes to no one

Two Paths Traveled by Those Wanting to Be “Special Beings”

• when kids can’t excel at something, they try to cause trouble. This is an attempt to be recognized, to be seen as ‘special’.
  • parents rebuking kids for bad behavior is NOT the appropriate course of action. Rebuking brings more attention to the kid.

The Courage to Be Normal

• we must accept that most people, ourselves included will never be ‘special’ in a good way, and to be special in a bad way is not the best way to live. So we must have courage to be normal.
• But if we accept that we’re normal, how can we ever improve?? Next section deals with this question…

Life Is a Series of Moments

• life is not a line, it is a series of dots, or moments.
  • This means that we cannot view as life as trying to reach some sort of goal, like climbing a mountain. The goal is to reach the top. So your present spot to the top is a line. What if you can’t make it to the top? It makes the entire thing meaningless. Living life as a line forces you to live life as if you’re always en-route.
  • On the other hand if you view it as a series of dots/moments, there are things to do and goals to accomplish along the way. Living life as a series of dots lets you live life in the here and now.

Live Like You’re Dancing

• Live life as if you’re dancing dot to dot. The dots don’t force you to reach the end, you can always switch to another end goal. But a line forces you to the end. If you stop mid way through, you’ve essentially failed.
• With dots, the journey is what matters, not the end goal. The journey contains the meaning.

Shine a Light on the Here and Now

• you can’t change the past nor can you predict the future.
• IMO this is a little extreme. I think we should still try to predict the future because the future heavily depends on our present actions.

The Greatest Life-Lie

• the greatest life-lie is to NOT live here and now. It is to look at the past and the future.
  • Most people pay too much attention to the past and future. They say “I want to achieve xyz” or “If only xyz never happened”. Rarely do people pay attention to the present.

Give Meaning to Seemingly Meaningless Life

• happiness and freedom go together. The path you take in life must be yours and yours alone. If it’s another person’s path, then you don’t have true freedom.
• Adler said that “life in general has no meaning, whatever meaning one’s life has must be assigned by the individual”
• how do we find this meaning? We live in the here and now. Only then will the meaning if your life become clear to you.
• each individual has great power. If we change ourselves, the world will change. That is the kind of power we each have.

Analysis

Notes and Quotes

Trauma / Your Past

• trauma is rejected. Your past does not impact you today
• trauma is simply the product of shaping your past experiences in a self-diminishing or negative way
• in other words, the self is determined NOT by the experiences (trauma) itself, but rather by the MEANING we give to those experiences
• this is not to say that past trauma’s can’t impact your personality, they certainly can. But things are NOT determined by those past traumas.

How to Change

• you can’t change the past. We must accept that fact. We must also accept that we are NOT controlled by our past
• the key to changing is to change the MEANING we assign to past events.
• don’t conflate your personality with a negative emotion or feeling. Rather externalize it:
  • “I am a pessimist” = do not say this
  • “I have a pessimistic view of the world” = this is a better way to frame things

Have Courage

• change requires courage.
• often your negative emotions are the result of your poor lifestyle. Then you make excuses, “I don’t have time”, “I’m just not that smart”, etc. The reality is that you’re more likely scared of exposing yourself, you’re scared of failure. So the solution is to have courage.
• How to we gain courage? By feeling like you have worth.
• How do we gain self-worth? By feeling we’re beneficial to the ‘community’
  • example, having a feeling of “I am of use to someone”
  • we must be able to contribute in order to gain worth
  • example, being the bread-winner of your family means you’re contributing to your family, therefore giving you the feeling that you are useful and have worth to the community (your family). This gives us courage to live.
• To sum up: only when you feel that you are of use to someone will you gain an awareness of your true self-worth, which in turn gives you courage to live.
• “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” p. 211
  • we do not lack ability, rather we lack courage.

Value Judgements

• facts are facts. But the meaning or VALUE we assign to them is fully up to us
• example: you are 5’5. Yes you’re short. But the meaning of being short is determined by only you. Sure, most of society looks down on men who are short, but you can change the meaning for yourself.

Compare Your Progress with Only Yourself

• some think having competition with friends or other people is a good way to improve, but it’s not. This only creates ‘enemies’, even subconsciously.
• Instead, you should encourage and cheer each other on, be comrades, not competitors
• instead, solely compare yourself against yourself

Love

• establishing loving interpersonal relationships is difficult
• love must be based on freedom, not restricting each other
• “if two people want to live together on good terms, they must treat each other as equal personalities.” p. 98

Don’t Live for Others

• “If you are not living your life for yourself, then who is going to live it for you?” p. 118
• you should not live life based on the expectations of others
• ‘separation of tasks’ is a central concept here. You must only involve yourself with your OWN tasks
• how to tell if a task is yours? If you will receive the result that is the outcome of performing the task, then that task is yours
• you must be careful not to get involved in other people’s tasks, even if you want to help them
• “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” p. 125
  • so yes, you can help them, but you can’t do the task for them
• a very simple thing you can do to solve a lot of problems, is to NOT push expectations on your spouse. If you do, and they don’t follow them, that will create unnecessary trouble for yourself
• you must also not allow other people to intervene in your tasks
  • example: your parents might have a career chosen for you. But this is not their task. You must learn to ignore their decision and learn to handle the emotional backlash you may receive

Hard Work

• “Children who have not been taught to confront challenges will try to avoid all challenges.” p. 136

Freedom = Being Disliked

• “freedom is being disliked by other people” p. 144
• the book is called “courage to be disliked” because once you become free, you will inevitably be disliked by others, and this is hard.
• You must have courage to withstand being disliked by others
• to be free means to break out of the shackles of other people’s demands, opinions, and expectations for you
• the goal isn’t to be disliked for the sake of being disliked, but if other people want to dislike you just because you’re living your own life, then so be it

Community Feeling

• interpersonal relationships are the source of unhappiness, but they are also the source of happiness
• your friends and comrades are what form your community
• you must have ‘concern for others’ (or ‘social interest’) in order to be a good player in your community
  • you are a part of your community, not its center
• you must get rid of selfishness and understand that you are NOT the center of the world
  • but you are the center of your own life. Don’t let others dictate your life for you.
• we must not rebuke or praise anyone. That is a sign of a vertical (hierarchical) relationship. Rather we should strive to form horizontal relationships where everyone is equal but not the same
  • rather than rebuke or praise, encourage instead, such as by offering assistance
  • words of encouragement include words of gratitude, respect, and joy
• you need 3 things in order to have a strong sense of community feeling:
  1. self-acceptance: change what you can about yourself, and accept what you cannot change
  2. confidence in others
  3. contribution to others
     1. often times this is just taking care of your household and joining the workforce

Interpersonal Relationships

• all relationships have problems.
• you may get hurt, you may hurt others. But this is life
• you must have confidence in others. This means believing in someone unconditionally. This is the key to strong relationships
• if you have doubt, then you will inevitably find things that further break down the relationship
  • ex: if you have doubts about your partner, lets say you think they are cheating, and you try to find evidence to prove it, you will find it. Because in every little thing you will find something that indicates they are cheating like their tone of voice, when you can’t contact them, etc. This is the doing of doubt.

Balance

• we must ensure we maintain balance between all life-tasks.
• being a workaholic and neglecting your family is actually the AVOIDANCE of life-tasks

Happiness

• happiness is feeling like you’re useful, like you contribute to ‘community’ (as defined in above sections)

Main Idea of the Book

• “The world is simple, and life is too” :)
• the overarching message is the following:
  • don’t let your past and other people’s expectations control or define your life
  • focus on your own tasks: contribute to the ‘community’
  • only by following the above two things can you achieve real happiness and find meaning in your life

Actionable Things

• actionable 1: Don’t fear being disliked
• actionable 2: Don’t let your past or other people’s expectations control/define your life
• actionable 3: Focus on your own tasks. Contribute to your ‘community’, even just the level of immediate family