The Courage to be Disliked
Review in 5 bullets (or less)
The book is written in a dialogue form between a philosopher and a youth.
Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga outline the philosophy of Alfred Adler, who was one of the most influential psychologists of the last century.
They make quite bold claims that there is no trauma, we should strive to be normal etc but defends these claims with clear logic.
I picked up this book because I’m a people pleaser and the idea of cultivating the courage to be disliked felt quite radical to me.
Some parts felt quite preachy to me but I suppose it was intended that way. Overall, it was a great read!
Implementable Takeaways
1. Enforce separation of tasks i.e.; have clear boundaries
Ask the question - Who ultimately is going to receive the end result brought about by the choice that is made? If it is not you, it is none of your business. Learn to create that boundary for yourself and life will get a lot simpler.
2. Cultivate the courage to be normal
Adler asks us to examine - why is it necessary to be special? Is being normal and ordinary really such a bad thing? Most people strive to be special because they cannot accept their current normal self.
3. Inferiority is good. Inferiority complex is bad.
There is nothing wrong with the feeling of inferiority. It can be a trigger for striving and growth. On the other hand, inferiority complex refers to a condition of using one’s feeling of inferiority as an excuse. For example:
Healthy feeling of inferiority - I don’t know how to code, so I’ve got to spend some time after work teaching myself the skill.
Inferiority complex - I don’t know how to code so I can’t get that role I want.
Avoid “A is the situation so B cannot be done” thinking.
Summary, Notes and Quotes
There is no such thing as trauma
“No 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.”
We live in highly subjective worlds that we ourselves give meaning to. If we focus only on the past to explain things in the present, it is the philosophy of aetiology. Adler proposes an alternative - Teleology.
In teleology, lifestyle refers to your worldview and outlook towards life. We are not born with this but rather choose it. If we’re not happy with the current state of our life, it's possible to change your lifestyle to align with the kind of life you want. However, that requires courage. There needs to be a tradeoff between the change related anxiety and the disappointment of not changing. Most people choose the latter.
All problems are interpersonal relationship problems
“When you are able to truly feel that ‘people are my comrades’, your way of looking at the world will change utterly. No longer will you think of the world as a perilous place, or be plagued by needless doubts; the world will appear before you as a safe and pleasant place.”
Most people look at the world as a ladder to climb. Adler proposes to look at it instead as walking on a level playing field with no vertical axis. We do not walk in order to compete with someone. The value is in trying to progress past who you are now.
If competition is at the core of your interpersonal relationships, you will always look at the world as a zero-sum game and never find peace.
Discard recognition
'The desire for recognition is probably a natural desire. So, are you going to keep rolling downhill in order to receive recognition from others? Are you going to wear yourself down like a rolling stone, until everything is smoothed away? When all that is left is a little round ball, would that be ‘the real I’?'
The reason that people seek recognition is that they want to like themselves. It’s easier to seek that from other people than cultivate it internally.
When you’re praised, you receive a judgement that your work is “good”. This “good” is not objective, but rather it depends on that person’s yardstick. If you seek praise, you will have no choice but to adapt to other peoples yardstick. You throw away who you really are and start living a life that other people deem “good”.
But discarding recognition is hard. It's easier to follow society's yardsticks than figure out a path that’s uniquely yours. It requires you to discern for yourself - what do you want to do? What kind of a life do you want? But this is the path of greatest returns.
Horizontal relationships over vertical relationships
There are primarily two types of relationships - Horizontal and vertical. Vertical relationships are hierarchical — boss / employee, parent / child, coach / player. Horizontal relationships are egalitarian and everyone is treated as equals.
In most cultures and communities we are coached and trained to lean towards vertical relationships starting from a relationship between a parent and a child. Both rebuke and praise are characteristics of a vertical relationship. Both are conferred by an individual who considers himself to be superior. Alder proposes to reject all forms of vertical relationships and cultivate only horizontal relationships where there will be straightforward gratitude, respect and joy.
Live in the here and now
“If life were climbing a mountain in order to reach the top, then the greater part of life would end up being ‘en route’. That is to say, one’s ‘real life’ would begin with one’s trek on the mountainside, and the distance one has travelled up until that point would be a ‘tentative life’ led by a ‘tentative me’. Now, supposing you didn’t make it to the mountaintop, one’s life would be interrupted ‘en route’, with just this ‘tentative me’ leading a ‘tentative life’. What kind of life would that be?”
People who think of life as climbing a mountain are treating their own existences as paths towards an end goal. However, it's better to think of life as a dance. With dance, it's the dancing itself that is the goal. We’re not concerned with arriving somewhere by doing it.
