The Courage to Be Disliked
Teleology VS Etiology
Freud’s psychology says we suffer because of trauma from past experiences, so it isn’t your fault. Adlerian psychology holds that we do not suffer from the shock of our experiences, the so-called trauma; in fact, we find in our experiences whatever suits our own goals. What determines us is not our past experiences, but the meaning we ourselves give to them. For example, your friend is not unable to go outside because of anxiety. The order is exactly the other way around. I think he creates the anxiety because he doesn’t want to go outside. Your friend first has the goal of “not going out,” and only then, to reach that goal, creates feelings like anxiety or fear. Adlerian psychology calls this “teleology.”
Thoughts: My first impression is that this idea is a bit like all the “procrastination” people talk about these days, which is really a way to rationalize your own goal. But shouldn’t the logic be: fear of the uncertainty after going out - not wanting to go out - fear of going out? The goal is only the outward behavior. So isn’t Freud actually just going one layer deeper?
Why We Aren’t Happy
Don’t Complain: Don’t Just Look at What You Were Given (Dealt), Look at How You Use It
We are unhappy with life because of the gap between the ideal and reality. First accept (like) who you are now, then play the cards in your hand well He put it this way: “The important thing is not what we are given, but how we use what we are given.” The reason you want to become Y or someone else is that you only keep focusing on “what you were given.” You shouldn’t do that. Instead, you should put your attention on “how to use what you were given.”
Thoughts: Another dose of the same kind of chicken soup for the soul. When you can’t reach the goal you want, it tells you the goal you set was wrong, and that you should first stop disliking where you are, then learn to make use of it.
Take Action: Change Takes Courage
Even though it’s a bit inconvenient and not quite free, you still feel your current way of living is better, probably because you think it’s easier to stay as you are and not change. If you keep being “the me of now,” then you can guess from experience how to handle what’s in front of you and how things will turn out. It’s like driving a road you know well. Even if something comes up, you can find a way to get through it.
On the other hand, if you choose a new way of living, you don’t know what problems the new you will face, or how you should deal with what’s in front of you. The future is hard to predict, life fills up with anxiety, and a more painful, more unhappy life might be waiting for you. In other words, even with all their complaints, people still think it’s easier and safer to keep things as they are.
Thoughts: So at root it’s still fear of uncertainty. It’s the “new experience - old experience - switching cost” thing again, plus the resolve to “abandon your current way of living.” Because the old experience is already a negative number, whether the attempt succeeds or fails, it’s an improvement.
- Philosopher: I have a young friend who dreams of becoming a novelist, but he never manages to write anything. He says it’s because work keeps him too busy and he has very little time to write novels, so he can’t produce any work, and he has never entered a single competition. But is that really so? In fact, by not entering, he wants to keep the possibility that “I could do it if I tried,” that is, he doesn’t want to put himself out there to be judged, and even less does he want to face the reality of being rejected because his work is poor. He only wants to live in possibilities like “I could do it if I had the time, I could write if the conditions were right, I have this talent.” Maybe in 5 or 10 years he’ll start using excuses like “I’m not young anymore” or “I have a family now.”
- Youth: …I know exactly how he feels.
- Philosopher: He should do it even if he gets rejected. Then maybe he would grow, or maybe he would realize he should choose a different path. Either way, he could move forward. That is what changing your current way of living means. If he never submits anything, he will never move forward.
- Youth: But his dream might be shattered!
- Philosopher: But so what? A simple task is right in front of him, “just do it,” and yet he keeps dragging out all kinds of “reasons why I can’t.” Don’t you think that is a very painful way to live? My friend who dreams of being a novelist is the one who, “himself,” made his life complicated, and so made it hard to be happy.
All Problems Are Interpersonal Relationship Problems
The reason you only see your shortcomings is that you have made up your mind “not to like yourself.” Because not liking yourself is a kind of “good” for you. Why do you dislike yourself? Why do you stare only at your shortcomings and refuse to like yourself? It’s because you are too afraid of being disliked by others and of getting hurt in your relationships. You are also very afraid of being dismissed by others. Afraid of being looked down on or rejected, afraid of being hurt inside. You think that rather than end up in that kind of mess, it would be better not to get involved with anyone from the start. In other words, your “goal” is “to avoid getting hurt in your relationships with others.”
So how do you achieve this goal? The answer is simple. You just become someone who only looks at their own shortcomings, deeply dislikes themselves, and stays out of relationships as much as possible. That way, as long as you hide in your shell, you don’t have to get involved with anyone, and if someone does reject you, you can use this as a reason to comfort yourself. You think: I was rejected because I have this shortcoming. If I didn’t have it, people would like me a lot.
Staying as “this self” full of shortcomings is an irreplaceable “good” for you. In other words, it “has benefits.”
Take work as an example
People who don’t want to work only don’t want to go to work because they want to escape “the interpersonal relationships at work.” For example, you send out résumés looking for a job and go to interviews, but no company hires you. Your self-esteem takes a big hit, and after thinking it over and over, you start to doubt the meaning of work. Or you have a major failure at work: your own mistake costs the company a huge loss, everything ahead looks dark, and so you start to hate going to the office. In none of these cases do you hate the work itself. What you hate is being criticized and blamed by others because of the work, being labeled as incompetent with things like “you don’t have the ability” or “you’re not right for this job,” and even more, having the dignity of the irreplaceable “me” hurt. In other words, it’s all a problem of interpersonal relationships.
Thoughts: This description and analysis really hit home for me. Whether in work or in life, it’s really just fear of being described as a middle-aged person who doesn’t measure up. But maybe it’s too absolute. There may really be people who can’t get a sense of value from their current job, even when their relationships are very harmonious.
You don’t feel lonely because you are by yourself. You feel lonely because you feel shut out by the people around you, by society and by the community. Even to feel lonely, we need other people to exist. In other words, a person becomes an “individual” only within social relationships.
Feelings of Inferiority and the Inferiority Complex
In the German that Adler used, the word for a feeling of inferiority means the “feeling” of having less value. In other words, the feeling of inferiority is a word about how we judge our own value. Thoughts: Inferiority is a missing sense of worth. The stronger your drive to improve, the heavier the feeling of inferiority
An inferiority complex is the state of using your own feeling of inferiority as a kind of excuse.
People who show their inferiority complex in words or attitude, and people who say “I can’t do B because of A,” are really implying “if it weren’t for A, I would be capable and valuable too.” In other words: “If it weren’t for this one thing, I could do it too.”
Bragging About Misfortune
Philosopher: I mean people who love to talk about, and even boast about, all the misfortunes in their upbringing. And even when others want to comfort them or help them change, they push the helping hand away with “you can’t understand how I feel.” In this way, I can gain an advantage over others and become more “special.” When we are sick, when we are hurt, when we are heartbroken after a breakup, in situations like these, many people use this attitude to make themselves into “special beings.”
Youth: So they expose their feeling of inferiority and use it as a weapon?
Philosopher: Yes. They use their misfortune as a weapon to control the other person. By telling everyone how unhappy they are and how much they suffer, they make the people around them, such as family or friends, worry, and they restrain and control what those people say and do. The shut-ins I mentioned at the start often wallow in this sense of superiority that uses misfortune as a weapon. Adler even pointed out: “In our culture, weakness is actually very strong and privileged.”
Thoughts: A lot of the time there’s this wish to play the victim
The Three Tasks of Life: The Task of Friendship, the Task of Work and the Task of Love
The objectives for behavior are these two: ① To be self-reliant. ② To live in harmony with society. The objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors are also two: ① The awareness that “I have the ability.” ② The awareness that “people are my comrades.”
Freedom Is No Longer Seeking Recognition from Others
This is where the danger of the desire for recognition lies. Why on earth do people seek recognition from others? In many cases, it’s actually because of the influence of reward-and-punishment education.
Philosopher: When people want to win recognition from others, almost all of them take the route of “meeting other people’s expectations.” This all comes from reward-and-punishment education: “if you do the right thing, you will be praised.” But if the main goal of your work becomes “meeting other people’s expectations,” work will become quite painful, won’t it? Because then you will always worry about how others see you and fear how they judge you, and you can’t be your true self at all.
Thoughts: So these days most people work to meet their boss’s needs.
“Not wanting to be disliked” may be my task, but “whether or not to dislike me” is someone else’s task. Even if someone doesn’t like me, I can’t interfere with that.
If someone thinks badly of you, it proves you’re living freely
Thoughts: This part feels very similar to Kant’s definition of freedom that I read about before: freedom as autonomy is the only true freedom.
Separation of Tasks > Community Feeling (Sense of Belonging)
Philosopher: So what happens if you can separate tasks? That is, no matter how unreasonably your boss loses their temper, that is not “my” task. That unreasonableness is a task the boss has to deal with. There is no need to try to please them, and no need to swallow your pride to keep the peace. What I should do is face my own life honestly and handle my own tasks properly. If you can see it this way, things will be completely different.
And: do not intervene in other people’s tasks, and do not let others intervene in yours. This is the concrete, groundbreaking idea Adlerian psychology offers, one that can completely change our problems with interpersonal relationships.
We are all looking for a sense of belonging, the feeling that “it’s okay to be here.” But Adlerian psychology holds that a sense of belonging is not something you get just by being there. You can only get it by actively taking part in the community.
Here is a principle of action to remember. When we run into difficulty in our relationships, or can’t see a way out, the first thing to consider is the principle: “listen to the voice of the larger community.”
Equal (Horizontal) Relationships
Philosopher: No, that is a life-lie. You do have room to refuse, and to suggest a better way. To escape the interpersonal conflict involved, and to escape responsibility, you tell yourself “I have no room to refuse,” and passively subordinate yourself to a vertical relationship.
Every step back comes from not wanting to take responsibility
Building Community (Self-Acceptance - Confidence in Others - Contribution to Others)
◆ Not self-affirmation, but self-acceptance
- Philosopher: When they’re alone, anyone can be as free as a king. In short, this is also a problem to think about from the angle of interpersonal relationships. It’s not that the “real self” doesn’t exist. It’s just that you can’t show it in front of others.
- Youth: Then what should I do?
- Philosopher: Again, community feeling. Concretely, it means switching from attachment to self (self interest) to concern for others (social interest), and building community feeling. This starts with three things: “self-acceptance,” “confidence in others” and “contribution to others.”
Philosopher: Let me start by explaining “self-acceptance.”
Youth: Not self-affirmation, but self-acceptance? Philosopher: Yes. There is a clear difference between the two. Self-affirmation is telling yourself “I can do it” or “I’m strong” even when you clearly can’t. You could say it’s a way of thinking that easily leads to a superiority complex. It’s a way of living that lies to yourself.
◆ What is the difference between trust and confidence?
Philosopher: When you are sad, it’s fine to just be sad. Because it is exactly the wish to escape pain or sadness that keeps you from taking action, so that you can’t build a deep relationship with anyone.
◆ The essence of work is contribution to others
Youth: So, to gain a sense of belonging, you have to see others as comrades, and to see others as comrades, you need self-acceptance and confidence in others.
Psychological Objectives (A Sense of Happiness)
① The awareness that “I have the ability.” ② The awareness that “people are my comrades.”
Whether I contribute is defined by me, not by other people’s recognition
Philosopher: If you truly have a feeling of contribution, you no longer need recognition from others. Because even without going out of your way to seek it, you can feel “I am of use to others.” In other words, a person bound by the desire for recognition does not have community feeling, and cannot yet achieve self-acceptance, confidence in others and contribution to others.
The Meaning of Life Is Up to You
Philosopher: What is the meaning of life? What do people live for? When someone asked this question, Adler’s answer was: “There is no universal meaning of life.”
Philosopher: So after saying “there is no universal meaning of life,” Adler also said: “The meaning of life is something you give to yourself.”