Sean Goh's Reviews > The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

Thought-provoking, like a dash of cold water to the face. Worth re-reading slowly to let the philosophical points percolate through the "self-acceptance => confidence in others =>contribution to others => meaning and self-acceptance" framework set out in the last chapter.

___
The argument concerning traumas, that because something happened to you in the past the way you are is not your fault, is typical of aetiology (study of causation). However, to Adler, we are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining. We make of them whatever suits our purposes.
Your life is something you choose yourself, and you are the one who decides how you live.
The question isn't "what happened?" but "how was it resolved?"
c.f. fuck your trauma

It is okay for you to be you. I am not saying it's fine to be 'just as you are'. If you are unable to feel really happy, then it's clear that things aren't right just as they are. You've got to put one foot in front of the other, and not stop.
"The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment."

The Greek word for “good” (agathon) does not have a moral meaning. It just means “beneficial.” Conversely, the word for “evil” (kakon) means “not beneficial.”
No one desires evil: something “not beneficial.”

Being "the way I am", with all these shortcomings is, for you, a precious virtue, something that's to your benefit. It helps you realise your goal of not being hurt in your relationships with other people.

All problems are interpersonal relationship problems.
To get rid of your problems, all you can do is live in the universe all alone. But you can’t do that.

Loneliness is having other people around you, and having a deep sense of being excluded from them. To feel lonely, we need other people.

Internal worry does not exist. Whatever the worry that may arise, the shadows of other people are always present.
Without people to compare yourself with, inferiority would not exist. But feelings of inferiority are always subjective interpretations.
The good thing about subjectivity is that it allows you to make your own choice.

The pursuit of superiority and the feeling of inferiority are stimulants to normal, healthy striving and growth. It is when they cease to stimulate action that they become complexes.
One boasts because of a feeling of inferiority, a fear that without the boasting others would not accept one "as they are". Superiority and inferiority complexes border each other.

The baby is the strongest person in our culture, the baby rules and cannot be dominated. The baby rules over adults with his weakness.

When one is trying to be oneself, competition will inevitably get in the way.
The terrifying thing about competition is that even if you're not a loser but a consistent winner, if you have placed yourself in competition you will never have a moment's peace. You don't want to be a loser. And you always have to keep on winning, you can't trust other people. The world becomes a perilous place overflowing with enemies.

The moment you are convinced “I am right” in an interpersonal relationship, you have already stepped into a power struggle.
If you think you are right, regardless of what other people’s opinions might be, the matter should be closed then and there.
However, many people try to make others submit to them.

Once one is released from the schema of competition, the need to triumph over someone disappears. One is also released from the fear that says, Maybe I will lose. One becomes able to celebrate other people's happiness with all one's heart. One may become able to contribute actively to other people's happiness. The person who always has the will to help another in times of need - that is someone who may properly be called your comrade.

Admitting mistakes, conveying words of apology, and stepping down from power struggles - none of these things is defeat. The pursuit of superiority is not something that is carried out through competition with other people.
When you're hung up on winning and losing you lose the ability to make the right choices.

Adler does not accept restricting one's partner. Relationships in which people restrict each other eventually fall apart.
When one can think, "Whenever I am with this person, I can behave very freely", one can really feel love.

You must not run away. No matter how distressful the relationship, you must not avoid or put off dealing with it. Even if in the end you're going to cut it with scissors, first you have to face it. The worst thing you can do is to just stand still with the situation as it is.

The simplest way to tell whose task it is: "who ultimately is going to receive the end result brought about by the choice that is made?"

Whenever a parent tells a child they must study "for their own good", they are clearly doing so in order to fulfill their own goals (desire for control, to appear good in society, etc). In other words, for the parents' good, not the child's. And it is because the child senses this deception that they rebel.

You believe in your partner, that is your task. But how that person acts with regard to your expectations and trust is other peoples' tasks.
Intervening in other's tasks and taking on their tasks turns one's life into something heavy and full of hardship.
All interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other people’s tasks, or having your own tasks intruded upon. Intervening in other people’s tasks is essentially egocentric.

How other people see you is their task. Because you have not performed the separation of tasks, you are worried about being judged by other people.
A way of living in which one is constantly troubled by how one is seen by others is a self-centred lifestyle in which one's sole concern is with the "I".

Forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance.
Like you can't read a book if you push it up against your face, nor hold it too far away.

There is no reason of any sort that you should not live your life as you please.

To understand the community feeling that Adler speaks of, use "you and I" as the starting point. Make the switch from attachment to self (self-interest) to concern for others (social interest).

In the act of praise, there is an aspect of it being "the passing of judgment by a person of ability on a person of no ability". This unconsciously creates a hierarchical relationship, putting the praiser beneath the praisee. One praises to manipulate.

The feeling of inferiority arises within vertical relationships.
If you can build horizontal relationships that are “equal but not the same” for all people, there will no longer be any room for inferiority complexes to emerge.

A sense of belonging is something that one can attain only by making an active commitment to the community of one's accord, and not simply by being here.
And it is when one is able to feel "I am beneficial to the community" that one can have a true sense of one's worth. The subjective feeling of contribution forms the basis of one feeling that they are of worth. Look at people on the level of being, not acts.

Someone has to start. Other people might not be cooperative, but that is not connected to you. My advice is this: you should start. With no regard to whether others are cooperative or not.

The basis of interpersonal relations is founded not on trust but on confidence.
Confidence is doing without any set conditions whatsoever when believing in others - without concerning oneself with such things as security.
There are people who will continue to have confidence in you no matter how they are treated.

It is precisely because we lay a foundation of unconditional confidence that it is possible for us to build a deep relationship.
Right now you are thinking "if I were to have confidence in someone unconditionally, I would just get taken advantage of." However you are not the one who decides whether or not to take advantage. That is the other person's task. All you need to do is think "What should I do?" If you are telling yourself, I'll give it to him if he isn't going to take advantage of me, it is just a relationship of trust that is based on security or conditions.

If you are only concerned about the times you were taken advantage of, if you are afraid to have confidence in others, in the long run, you will not be able to build deep relationships with anyone.

It is because one self accepts that one can have 'confidence in others' without the fear of being taken advantage of. And it is because one can place unconditional confidence in others, and feel that people are one's comrades, that one can engage in 'contribution to others'. Further it is because one contributes to others that one can have the deep awareness that "I am of use to someone", and accept oneself just as one is.

A Jewish anecdote: "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. Now who do you focus on? A person who is lacking in harmony of life will see only the one person he dislikes, and will make a judgement of the world from that.

Happiness is the feeling of contribution.
Contribution that is carried out who one is seeing other people as enemies may indeed lead to hypocrisy. But if other people are one's comrades that should never happen, regardless of the contributions one makes.

If one really has a feeling of contribution, one will no longer have any need for recognition from others. Because one will already have the real awareness that "I am of use to someone" without needing to go out of one's way to be acknowledged by others. In other words, a person obsessed with the desire for recognition does not have any community feeling yet.

The fact that you think you can see the past, or predict the future, is proof that rather than living earnestly in the here and now, you are living in a dim twilight. You are trying to give yourself a way out by focusing on the past and the future. What happened in the past has nothing whatsoever to do with your here and now, and what the future may hold is not a matter to think about here and now.
To shine a spotlight on here and now is to go about doing what one can do now, earnestly and conscientiously.

Why is it necessary to be special?
Be normal.
You do not need to flaunt your superiority.