The Courage to be Disliked: How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
Created time
Sep 10, 2022 10:59 PM
Author
Ichiro Kishimi
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Book Name
The Courage to be Disliked: How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
Modified
Last updated December 26, 2023
Summary
The Courage to be Disliked, by Ichiro Kishimi, is a powerful guide to understanding life and achieving true happiness. It is based on the philosophy of Alfred Adler, one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century, who pioneered the concept of individual psychology. The book explores the idea that true freedom comes from understanding who you are as an individual and accepting yourself, even if you are disliked by others.
Key Learnings from The Courage to be Disliked:
• Recognizing your own values and striving for self-acceptance is the key to personal fulfillment.
• Breaking away from the conventional beliefs of others and embracing an individual approach will lead to greater personal growth.
• Understanding your negative emotions can lead to more positive results.
• Adopting a more positive attitude and an open mind will lead to a successful life.
As a UX designer, this book is essential reading for understanding the importance of individualism. Its invaluable insight into understanding personal values, based on Adler's psychological theories, will help you develop a better understanding of yourself and your work. Other books that could be of interest to UX professionals include The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman and Designing for Emotion by Aarron Walter.
🎀 Highlights
Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler are all giants in the world of psychology. This book is a distillation of Adler’s philosophical and psychological ideas and teachings, taking the form of a narrative dialogue between a philosopher and a young man.
the philosophical question: How can one be happy? Adlerian psychology might hold the key.
But religion has lost its power and now there is no real belief in God. With nothing to rely on, everyone is filled with anxiety and doubt. Everyone is living for themselves. That is how society is today, so please tell me—given these realities and in the light of what I have said—can you still say the world is simple?
PHILOSOPHER: There is no change in what I say. The world is simple and life is simple, too.
YOUTH: How? Anyone can see that it’s a chaotic mass of contradictions. PHILOSOPHER: That is not because the world is complicated. It’s because you are making the world complicated.
number—it stays the same to everyone who measures it. But when you drink the water in the summer it seems cool and when you drink the same water in the winter it seems warm. Even though it’s the same water,
number—it stays the same to everyone who measures it. But when you drink the water in the summer it seems cool and when you drink the same water in the winter it seems warm. Even though it’s the same water, at the same sixty degrees according to the thermometer,
PHILOSOPHER: You may know this, but well water stays at pretty much the same temperature all year round, at about sixty degrees. That is an objective number—it stays the same to everyone who measures it. But when you drink the water in the summer it seems cool and when you drink the same water in the winter it seems warm.
then and you will involuntarily shut your eyes. Maybe you’ll want the glasses back on, but can you even take them off in the first place? Can you look directly at the world? Do you have the courage?
Maybe you’ll want the glasses back on, but can you even take them off in the first place? Can you look directly at the world? Do you have the courage? YOUTH: Courage? PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it’s a matter of courage.
He lacked self-confidence and, ever since childhood, this had been compounded by deep-seated feelings of inferiority with regard to his personal
The young man entered the study and sat slouched in a chair. Why was he so determined to reject the philosopher’s theories? His reasons were abundantly clear. He lacked self-confidence and, ever since childhood, this had been compounded by deep-seated feelings of inferiority with regard to his personal and academic backgrounds, as well as his physical appearance.
PHILOSOPHER: I’m not very familiar with paths taken by other schools of psychology. However, I think it is fair to say that Adlerian psychology is clearly in line with Greek philosophy, and that it is a proper field of study.
Adler was one of the original core members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which was led by Freud. His ideas were counter to Freud’s, and he split from the group and proposed an “individual psychology” based on his own original theories. YOUTH: Individual psychology? Another odd term. So Adler was a disciple of Freud’s?
Though psychology primarily tends to be associated with Freud and Jung, Adler is recognized throughout the rest of the world, along with Freud and Jung, as one of the three giants in this field.
Adler was one of the original core members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which was led by Freud. His ideas were counter to Freud’s, and he split from the group and proposed an “individual psychology” based on his own original theories.
Dale Carnegie, who wrote the international bestsellers How to Win Friends and Influence People and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, referred to Adler as “a great psychologist who devoted his life to researching humans and their latent abilities.”
Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, much of the content closely resembles Adler’s ideas.
Adler’s ideas are said to have been a hundred years ahead of their time, and even today we have not managed to fully comprehend them. That is how truly groundbreaking they were.
there are always so many people getting taken in by new religions and dubious self-help seminars and any preaching on how everyone can change. Am I wrong?
why you are so adamant that people can’t change.
ask why you are so adamant that people can’t change.
Everyone who has grown up abused by his or her parents would have to suffer the same effects as your friend
PHILOSOPHER: If we focus only on past causes and try to explain things solely through cause and effect, we end up with “determinism.” Because what this says is that our present and our future have already been decided by past occurrences, and are unalterable. Am I wrong?
you’re saying that the past doesn’t matter? PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that is the standpoint of Adlerian psychology.
Your friend is insecure, so he can’t go out. Think about it the other way around. He doesn’t want to go out, so he’s creating a state of anxiety.
Your friend had the goal of not going out beforehand, and he’s been manufacturing a state of anxiety and fear as a means to achieve that goal. In Adlerian psychology, this is called “teleology.”
However, these too are symptoms that he has created in order to achieve the goal of not going out.
He is not pretending to be sick. The anxiety and fear your friend is feeling are real. On occasion, he might also suffer from migraines and violent stomach cramps. However, these too are symptoms that he has created
He is not pretending to be sick. The anxiety and fear your friend is feeling are real. On occasion, he might also suffer from migraines and violent stomach cramps. However, these too are symptoms that he has created in order to achieve the goal of not going out. YOUTH: That’s not true! No way! That’s too depressing!
the difference between etiology (the study of causation) and teleology (the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause).
the Freudian view of trauma is fascinating. Freud’s idea is that a person’s psychic wounds (traumas) cause his or her present unhappiness.
is not saying that the experience of a horrible calamity
If I stay in my room all the time, without ever going out, my parents will worry. I can get all of my parents’ attention focused on me. They’ll be extremely careful around me and always handle me with kid gloves. On the other hand, if I take even one step out of the house, I’ll just become
But why doesn’t he want to go out? That’s where the problem resides.
PHILOSOPHER: Well,
PHILOSOPHER: Well, think of it from the parents’ view. How would you feel if your child were shut up in a room?
If I stay in my room all the time, without ever going out, my parents will worry. I can get
PHILOSOPHER: If I stay in my room all the time, without ever going out, my parents will worry. I can get all of my parents’ attention focused on me. They’ll be extremely careful around me and always handle me with kid gloves.
On the other hand, if I take even one step out of the house, I’ll just become part of a faceless mass whom no one pays attention to. I’ll be surrounded by people I don’t know and just end up average, or less than average. And no one will take special care
Every one of us is living in line with some goal. That is what teleology tells us.
YOUTH: Yesterday afternoon, I was reading a book in a coffee shop when a waiter passed by and spilled coffee on my jacket. I’d just bought it and it’s my nicest piece of clothing.
I yelled at him at the top of my lungs.
Though you are normally mild-mannered, you couldn’t resist being angry. It was an unavoidable occurrence, and you couldn’t do anything about it. Is that what you are saying?
suppose you happened to have had a knife on you yesterday, and when you blew up you got carried away and stabbed him. Would you still be able to justify that by saying, “It was an unavoidable occurrence, and I couldn’t do anything about it”?
PHILOSOPHER: Then suppose you happened to have had a knife on you yesterday, and when you blew up you got carried away and stabbed him. Would you still be able to justify that by saying, “It was an unavoidable occurrence, and I couldn’t do anything about it”?
PHILOSOPHER: Then suppose you happened to have had a knife on you yesterday, and when you blew up you got carried away and stabbed him. Would
PHILOSOPHER: Then suppose you happened to have had a knife on you yesterday, and when you blew up you got carried away and stabbed him. Would you still be able to justify that by saying, “It was an unavoidable occurrence, and I couldn’t do anything about
In other words, in order to fulfill the goal of shouting, you created the emotion of anger.
the waiter would most likely have given you a sincere apology, wiped your jacket with a clean cloth, and taken other appropriate measures. He might have even arranged for it to be dry-cleaned.
The procedure of explaining things in normal words felt like too much trouble,
The tool you used to do this was the emotion of anger.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right, anger is an instantaneous emotion. Now listen, I have a story. One day, a mother and daughter were quarreling loudly.
telephone rang. “Hello?” The mother picked up the receiver hurriedly, her voice still thick with anger. The caller was her daughter’s homeroom teacher.
she became very polite. Then, for the next five minutes or so, she carried on a conversation in her best telephone voice. Once
she became very polite. Then, for the next five minutes or so, she carried on
she became very polite. Then, for the next five minutes or so, she carried on a conversation in her best telephone voice.
Once she hung up, in a moment, her expression changed again and she went straight back to yelling at her daughter.
The mother isn’t yelling in anger she cannot control. She is simply using the anger to overpower her daughter with a loud voice and thereby assert her opinions.
So people are not controlled either by emotion or the past?
If you end up staying in etiology, you will be bound by the past and never be able to find happiness.
Life isn’t just hard. If the past determined everything and couldn’t be changed,
Life isn’t just hard. If the past determined everything and couldn’t be changed, we who are living today would no longer be able to take effective steps forward in our
Life isn’t just hard. If the past determined everything and couldn’t be changed, we who are living today would no longer be able to take effective steps forward in our lives. What
Socrates and Adler both conveyed their ideas by dialogue?
All your doubts will be dispelled through this dialogue. And you will begin to change.
YOUTH: What does this have to do with me? PHILOSOPHER: At some stage in your life, you chose “being unhappy.” It is not because you were born into unhappy circumstances or ended up in an unhappy situation. It’s
YOUTH: What does this have to do with me? PHILOSOPHER: At some stage in your life, you chose “being unhappy.” It is not because you were born into unhappy circumstances or ended up in an unhappy situation. It’s that you judged “being unhappy” to be good for
YOUTH: What does this have to do with me? PHILOSOPHER: At some stage in your life, you chose “being unhappy.” It is not because you were born into unhappy circumstances or ended up in an unhappy situation. It’s that you judged “being unhappy” to be good for you.
I chose an unhappy life? Because it was good for me? What an absurd argument!
In Adlerian psychology, we describe personality and disposition with the word “lifestyle.”
lifestyle could be defined as someone’s personality; taken more broadly, it is a word that encompasses the worldview of that person and his or her outlook on
Say there’s someone who worries about himself and says, “I am a pessimist.”
You could consider that the issue is not personality but rather the view of the world. It seems that the word “personality” is nuanced and suggests being unchangeable. But if we’re talking about a view of the world, well, then, that should be possible to alter.
If your lifestyle is not something that you were naturally born with, but something you chose yourself, then it must be possible to choose it over again.
Although there are some small inconveniences and limitations, you probably think that the lifestyle you have now is the most practical one, and that it’s easier to leave things as they are.
Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.
Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Alfred Adler are all giants in the world of psychology. This book is a distillation of Adler’s philosophical and psychological ideas and teachings, taking the form of a narrative dialogue between a philosopher and a young man.
the philosophical question: How can one be happy? Adlerian psychology might hold the key.
But religion has lost its power and now there is no real belief in God. With nothing to rely on, everyone is filled with anxiety and doubt. Everyone is living for themselves. That is how society is today, so please tell me—given these realities and in the light of what I have said—can you still say the world is simple?
PHILOSOPHER: There is no change in what I say. The world is simple and life is simple, too.
YOUTH: How? Anyone can see that it’s a chaotic mass of contradictions. PHILOSOPHER: That is not because the world is complicated. It’s because you are making the world complicated.
number—it stays the same to everyone who measures it. But when you drink the water in the summer it seems cool and when you drink the same water in the winter it seems warm. Even though it’s the same water,
number—it stays the same to everyone who measures it. But when you drink the water in the summer it seems cool and when you drink the same water in the winter it seems warm. Even though it’s the same water, at the same sixty degrees according to the thermometer,
PHILOSOPHER: You may know this, but well water stays at pretty much the same temperature all year round, at about sixty degrees. That is an objective number—it stays the same to everyone who measures it. But when you drink the water in the summer it seems cool and when you drink the same water in the winter it seems warm.
then and you will involuntarily shut your eyes. Maybe you’ll want the glasses back on, but can you even take them off in the first place? Can you look directly at the world? Do you have the courage?
Maybe you’ll want the glasses back on, but can you even take them off in the first place? Can you look directly at the world? Do you have the courage? YOUTH: Courage? PHILOSOPHER: Yes, it’s a matter of courage.
He lacked self-confidence and, ever since childhood, this had been compounded by deep-seated feelings of inferiority with regard to his personal
The young man entered the study and sat slouched in a chair. Why was he so determined to reject the philosopher’s theories? His reasons were abundantly clear. He lacked self-confidence and, ever since childhood, this had been compounded by deep-seated feelings of inferiority with regard to his personal and academic backgrounds, as well as his physical appearance.
PHILOSOPHER: I’m not very familiar with paths taken by other schools of psychology. However, I think it is fair to say that Adlerian psychology is clearly in line with Greek philosophy, and that it is a proper field of study.
Adler was one of the original core members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which was led by Freud. His ideas were counter to Freud’s, and he split from the group and proposed an “individual psychology” based on his own original theories. YOUTH: Individual psychology? Another odd term. So Adler was a disciple of Freud’s?
Though psychology primarily tends to be associated with Freud and Jung, Adler is recognized throughout the rest of the world, along with Freud and Jung, as one of the three giants in this field.
Adler was one of the original core members of the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society, which was led by Freud. His ideas were counter to Freud’s, and he split from the group and proposed an “individual psychology” based on his own original theories.
Dale Carnegie, who wrote the international bestsellers How to Win Friends and Influence People and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, referred to Adler as “a great psychologist who devoted his life to researching humans and their latent abilities.”
Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, much of the content closely resembles Adler’s ideas.
Adler’s ideas are said to have been a hundred years ahead of their time, and even today we have not managed to fully comprehend them. That is how truly groundbreaking they were.
there are always so many people getting taken in by new religions and dubious self-help seminars and any preaching on how everyone can change. Am I wrong?
why you are so adamant that people can’t change.
ask why you are so adamant that people can’t change.
Everyone who has grown up abused by his or her parents would have to suffer the same effects as your friend
PHILOSOPHER: If we focus only on past causes and try to explain things solely through cause and effect, we end up with “determinism.” Because what this says is that our present and our future have already been decided by past occurrences, and are unalterable. Am I wrong?
you’re saying that the past doesn’t matter? PHILOSOPHER: Yes, that is the standpoint of Adlerian psychology.
Your friend is insecure, so he can’t go out. Think about it the other way around. He doesn’t want to go out, so he’s creating a state of anxiety.
Your friend had the goal of not going out beforehand, and he’s been manufacturing a state of anxiety and fear as a means to achieve that goal. In Adlerian psychology, this is called “teleology.”
However, these too are symptoms that he has created in order to achieve the goal of not going out.
He is not pretending to be sick. The anxiety and fear your friend is feeling are real. On occasion, he might also suffer from migraines and violent stomach cramps. However, these too are symptoms that he has created
He is not pretending to be sick. The anxiety and fear your friend is feeling are real. On occasion, he might also suffer from migraines and violent stomach cramps. However, these too are symptoms that he has created in order to achieve the goal of not going out. YOUTH: That’s not true! No way! That’s too depressing!
the difference between etiology (the study of causation) and teleology (the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause).
the Freudian view of trauma is fascinating. Freud’s idea is that a person’s psychic wounds (traumas) cause his or her present unhappiness.
is not saying that the experience of a horrible calamity
If I stay in my room all the time, without ever going out, my parents will worry. I can get all of my parents’ attention focused on me. They’ll be extremely careful around me and always handle me with kid gloves. On the other hand, if I take even one step out of the house, I’ll just become
But why doesn’t he want to go out? That’s where the problem resides.
PHILOSOPHER: Well,
PHILOSOPHER: Well, think of it from the parents’ view. How would you feel if your child were shut up in a room?
If I stay in my room all the time, without ever going out, my parents will worry. I can get
PHILOSOPHER: If I stay in my room all the time, without ever going out, my parents will worry. I can get all of my parents’ attention focused on me. They’ll be extremely careful around me and always handle me with kid gloves.
On the other hand, if I take even one step out of the house, I’ll just become part of a faceless mass whom no one pays attention to. I’ll be surrounded by people I don’t know and just end up average, or less than average. And no one will take special care
Every one of us is living in line with some goal. That is what teleology tells us.
YOUTH: Yesterday afternoon, I was reading a book in a coffee shop when a waiter passed by and spilled coffee on my jacket. I’d just bought it and it’s my nicest piece of clothing.
I yelled at him at the top of my lungs.
Though you are normally mild-mannered, you couldn’t resist being angry. It was an unavoidable occurrence, and you couldn’t do anything about it. Is that what you are saying?
suppose you happened to have had a knife on you yesterday, and when you blew up you got carried away and stabbed him. Would you still be able to justify that by saying, “It was an unavoidable occurrence, and I couldn’t do anything about it”?
PHILOSOPHER: Then suppose you happened to have had a knife on you yesterday, and when you blew up you got carried away and stabbed him. Would you still be able to justify that by saying, “It was an unavoidable occurrence, and I couldn’t do anything about it”?
PHILOSOPHER: Then suppose you happened to have had a knife on you yesterday, and when you blew up you got carried away and stabbed him. Would
PHILOSOPHER: Then suppose you happened to have had a knife on you yesterday, and when you blew up you got carried away and stabbed him. Would you still be able to justify that by saying, “It was an unavoidable occurrence, and I couldn’t do anything about
In other words, in order to fulfill the goal of shouting, you created the emotion of anger.
the waiter would most likely have given you a sincere apology, wiped your jacket with a clean cloth, and taken other appropriate measures. He might have even arranged for it to be dry-cleaned.
The procedure of explaining things in normal words felt like too much trouble,
The tool you used to do this was the emotion of anger.
PHILOSOPHER: That’s right, anger is an instantaneous emotion. Now listen, I have a story. One day, a mother and daughter were quarreling loudly.
telephone rang. “Hello?” The mother picked up the receiver hurriedly, her voice still thick with anger. The caller was her daughter’s homeroom teacher.
she became very polite. Then, for the next five minutes or so, she carried on a conversation in her best telephone voice. Once
she became very polite. Then, for the next five minutes or so, she carried on
she became very polite. Then, for the next five minutes or so, she carried on a conversation in her best telephone voice.
Once she hung up, in a moment, her expression changed again and she went straight back to yelling at her daughter.
The mother isn’t yelling in anger she cannot control. She is simply using the anger to overpower her daughter with a loud voice and thereby assert her opinions.
So people are not controlled either by emotion or the past?
If you end up staying in etiology, you will be bound by the past and never be able to find happiness.
Life isn’t just hard. If the past determined everything and couldn’t be changed,
Life isn’t just hard. If the past determined everything and couldn’t be changed, we who are living today would no longer be able to take effective steps forward in our
Life isn’t just hard. If the past determined everything and couldn’t be changed, we who are living today would no longer be able to take effective steps forward in our lives. What
Socrates and Adler both conveyed their ideas by dialogue?
All your doubts will be dispelled through this dialogue. And you will begin to change.
YOUTH: What does this have to do with me? PHILOSOPHER: At some stage in your life, you chose “being unhappy.” It is not because you were born into unhappy circumstances or ended up in an unhappy situation. It’s
YOUTH: What does this have to do with me? PHILOSOPHER: At some stage in your life, you chose “being unhappy.” It is not because you were born into unhappy circumstances or ended up in an unhappy situation. It’s that you judged “being unhappy” to be good for
YOUTH: What does this have to do with me? PHILOSOPHER: At some stage in your life, you chose “being unhappy.” It is not because you were born into unhappy circumstances or ended up in an unhappy situation. It’s that you judged “being unhappy” to be good for you.
I chose an unhappy life? Because it was good for me? What an absurd argument!
In Adlerian psychology, we describe personality and disposition with the word “lifestyle.”
lifestyle could be defined as someone’s personality; taken more broadly, it is a word that encompasses the worldview of that person and his or her outlook on
Say there’s someone who worries about himself and says, “I am a pessimist.”
You could consider that the issue is not personality but rather the view of the world. It seems that the word “personality” is nuanced and suggests being unchangeable. But if we’re talking about a view of the world, well, then, that should be possible to alter.
If your lifestyle is not something that you were naturally born with, but something you chose yourself, then it must be possible to choose it over again.
Although there are some small inconveniences and limitations, you probably think that the lifestyle you have now is the most practical one, and that it’s easier to leave things as they are.
Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.
