The Courage to Be Disliked

picture this: a world where your past doesn’t define your future and every day brings a chance to rewrite your story. the courage to be disliked opens up this world. authors ichiro kishimi and fumitake koga take you through a conversation rooted in adlerian psychology. they present a powerful idea: you have the control to reshape your life!

this chapter is an invitation to embrace this idea. ready? then let’s dive in.

let’s start with an idea from alfred adler. the austrian psychologist, despite being less well-known than his contemporaries freud and jung, brought forth ideas that resonated with human optimism and the possibility of change. according to adler, each person has the ability to overcome past difficulties and redefine their path in life.

for example, consider a child who has endured bullying. standard thinking might suggest that such a person is destined to confront a life shaped by this mistreatment, potentially leading to a future filled with social struggles and personal insecurities. however, adler argued that this doesn’t have to be the case. while it’s undeniable that traumatic experiences can leave their mark, they don’t have to become a life sentence.

adler’s concept of individual psychology centers on the idea that people are not merely products of their environments or histories but are capable of interpreting, reframing, and reacting to these factors in a way that allows personal growth and change. this means that someone who has suffered can acknowledge their past yet also work actively to create a different, more fulfilling future.

think about unhappy single people. they might have been alone for years but can’t muster up the courage to get out there and meet new people. networking and socializing are too much for them, let alone dating. this happens because they’re set in their ways and attached to a lifestyle of solitude and unhappiness. deep down, they believe in the saying “better the devil you know than the risk of getting hurt.” but they’re wrong.

you see, we all know optimists and pessimists, and we might think that their personalities are fixed. traditional psychology has encouraged us to think like that. adlerian psychology, however, doesn’t take that approach. it uses the term lifestyle to describe what traditional psychology refers to as character or personality. this change of terminology highlights the fact that people’s moods are not fixed by some deep-set constitution. rather, they are articulations of their individual outlooks on the world. for example, if your vision of the world is negative, pessimism will rule the day. 

adler claimed that many people do so around the age of ten based on previous life experiences, both positive and negative. but you can actually change, even if you’re an adult. but it takes hard work. after all, there’s so many people who like to talk about their unhappiness, and how they want their lives to be different. you might get the impression that they do want to change, but actually the reverse is true: they might detest their current situations, but at least there is a familiar comfort to knowing what they’re dealing with. change, on the other hand, requires courage. you have to ready yourself for the unknown, and of course, the possibility that you might fail.

shortcomings. we all have them, and we all like to gripe about them. who hasn’t looked in the mirror and been a bit concerned about something they’ve seen? but the real problem is going from that little bit of concern to thinking that minor imperfections are your biggest problems.

one of the authors, ichiro kishimi, has seen that way of thinking in action. one of his students confided that he disliked himself. kishimi was taken aback – why should that be?

the student responded that he was all too aware of his faults. he lacked self-confidence, and his outlook on life was very pessimistic. as for social situations, well, he was so self-conscious and awkward that he felt he just couldn’t act naturally around others. the student was of the belief that if he could amend the features of his personality he hated, he could fix the issue. he was even willing to take a class so he could become more self-confident.

but kishimi was dissatisfied with what he heard. he asked the student how it felt discussing these feelings of self-loathing openly. it made him feel even worse, he said. what’s more, he claimed he now understood why nobody wanted to spend time with someone as awful as he was.

and there, for kishimi, lay the answer to these feelings of self-loathing. as the student was exclusively poring over what he saw as the negative aspects of his personality, he had effectively created “good reasons” for isolating himself.

think about it: people who retreat into themselves often do so because they don’t want to be hurt by others. the irony is that by distancing themselves, they often come across as aloof and arrogant, hurting both themselves and others. but it doesn’t have to be that way. all you have to do is accept that pain and exclusion are as much a part of life as joy and inclusion.

when you look at the way we’ve constructed the world, you’ll see that society has placed a great premium on competition. it’s how we promote progress. but there’s a problem with that. competitive mind-sets can be harmful for mental well-being. a competitive outlook encourages us to think of people as either winners or losers. and of course nobody wants to be a loser. consequently, the tendency is that we start seeing our fellow humans as rivals, as threats and impediments to success. 

living in a world packed with rivals is highly stressful. people who “lose” or who have low self-esteem are going to suffer in such a system. but it’s also bad for the winners: they’re under relentless pressure to drive on to the next success and not lose their winning position. this explains why highly productive people can still be deeply unhappy, despite their success. there’s a logical consequence of freeing ourselves of a competitive attitude: you shouldn’t ever feel that anybody else is holding you back.

for instance, it’s fairly common to worry about appearances. we might be concerned what others see when they look at us. sometimes, even just walking down the street is enough to trigger thoughts that people are silently judging us. of course, most of the time that’s just nonsense; most people just don’t care that much how others look!

it’s all too easy to create a fantasy world filled with judgmental and scornful faces. but it is just fantasy. the moment we realize that nobody cares about our appearance, our life choices or anything at all, then we can learn to accept freedom. after that, nothing can hold you back from doing what you really want, other than your own attitude.

it’s all too easy to get caught up doing some pretty awful things, just because you want approval. bullying at school worked just that way. half the people picking on the nerd were probably only doing so because they thought it would make them popular with the bigger bullies. but you don’t have to live your life that way. you don’t need constant recognition or approval from others.

just think of our education culture. it’s almost entirely based on ideas of reward and punishment. ever since we were very young, we were taught that if we did something well, we would be rewarded. equally, if we did something wrong, we would be punished. it’s actually a very destructive way of thinking. it means we might find it difficult to motivate ourselves as adults, unless under duress or with the promise of the reward of recognition.

we can break this cycle by realizing that we’re under no compulsion to live up to the expectations of others. if that’s what guides you, then you may make all kinds of choices – such as your job or your partner – based on what other people might think.

for instance, families often pressurize adolescents to take up particular kinds of profession. it might have something to do with familial traditions, or even societal expectations. the risk is that young adults may buckle under this pressure and end up in jobs for which they are wholly unsuited, leaving them unhappy and distanced from their true calling. that means you have to be ready to disappoint everyone, including your family, if you’re going to make the life choices that really are best for you. in other words: you need to have the courage to be disliked.

let’s stick with the example of parenting. when a child gives up caring at school and starts getting bad marks, most parents tend to react by becoming stricter. they think discipline is the answer. unfortunately, that’s precisely the wrong thing to do. meddling in other people’s lives gets you nowhere. that’s because each one of us has to learn to take responsibility for our own actions in life. for example, if a parent starts pushing a child to work harder in school, the child’s not going to learn to love studying but just follow a routine.

there’s little difference between this sort of interference and outright control. it doesn’t show concern, just that someone is trying to push an agenda promoting his own interests. so, in this example, the parents of the pupil may actually want their child to get good results as an indication of their successful parenting for themselves and for the wider community.

what parents should actually do is allow children their freedom but also demonstrate that they are always there to lend support. this sort of parenting will result in children who are more independent and mature but who will come to love learning.

with all that said, it can be hard to recognize that you’re interfering in other people’s lives and that you need to change how you interact with others. after all, we’re so used to considering people who are close to us – whether that’s children or partners – as little more than appendages to ourselves. that means that what we think of as support often ends up being self-interested manhandling.

imagine your partner is unemployed. you might come up with a strategy for your partner that leads to a specific employment opportunity. you might even coerce them into following it. but that’s not true support. in reality, you have to learn to empathize with others without trying to control. that means loving someone in spite of “imperfections,” and that includes the inability to land a paying position.

it’s common these days to feel isolated and alone, as though you were somehow cut off from society. but that’s not true. all humans are inherently part of a broader community. according to adlerian psychology, this idea of community is of central importance to humans. that’s not all that surprising at first glance. but adler went one step further. for adler, community doesn’t just consist of those we spend most of our time with, or people who live on the same block. adler, rather, advocates what he calls a global community. this encompasses everything and everyone: any plant, mineral or animal across the entire universe.

the idea is that humans should be able to find fulfillment through developing themselves as part of this all-encompassing realm. as soon as we realize how we might fit into this grand scheme, we’ll start to act differently. we’ll begin to pay more heed to things around us and begin to care a little bit more. and this is when change happens. it occurs because we each realize we’re not actually the center of the universe around which all else revolves.

of course, it’s quite natural for people to see themselves as the main protagonist in their own lives. the problems emerge when we draw the false conclusion that we’re even bigger than that. if we do start thinking that we’re the grand high admiral of the cosmic expanse then inevitably we’ll interact with people only thinking in terms of what they can give or do for us. there’s no reciprocity.

attitudes like that will only lead to frustration, as nobody is actually that important; an ego that big can never be sated! that’s why we’ve got to flip it. don’t think in terms of what the world can give to you. expectations like that will get you nowhere. think about what you can give to the world.

it’s a trap we’re all familiar with, but really there’s no need to spend your time thinking of yourself as an aggrieved victim. after all, even if you encounter a couple of people with absolute disrespect, most folks are still pretty swell all in all. this way of thinking where we’re the victim often emerges when we become overly fixated on ourselves. self-obsession leads to loss of perspective. it’s a world of warped subjective realities where negativity is allowed to dominate. for instance, it’s not uncommon to hear people declare that “nobody loves me,” or “i always lose.” but what they actually might be doing is looking at isolated unfortunate incidents and extrapolating.

on a related note, people who stammer are of particular interest in adlerian psychology. according to the theory, many begin to stammer in the first place because they are worried about how they talk. maybe someone said an unkind word to them at some point. from this one encounter, they think that they are under constant threat of criticism. this worry only makes them stammer all the more.

those who stammer might reach the conclusion that they’d do better if everyone were kinder. but of course, most people are kind and aren’t inclined to tease stammerers. so, based on adlerian psychology, the solution lies within the person who stammers; they should stop focusing on themselves and their fears and become interested in others. 

there are other effects that arise from self-obsession. becoming a workaholic is one such problem. think about it. work is one way that people get respect and attention in our society. so if people are putting work above family and friends that means they’d much rather have affirmation of their own abilities than engage with others. it’s actually pretty selfish.

from all these facets of adlerian psychology we can start to draw some conclusions. if we want to achieve happiness, then we have to make some subtle changes in our way of thinking. first off, we need to become more independent, reduce competition and worry less about others’ approval. conversely, we need to learn not to place ourselves at the center of everything, think about how we can contribute to the community at large, and stop selfishly self-obsessing. it might sound like a tricky balancing act, but it can be done!

you shouldn’t feel like you’re stuck being who you are. in fact, people can change and develop as much as they like. however, that can mean getting hurt and disappointed in the process. success and enjoying life is not beyond reach. by learning not to care too much what other people think or about what they want us to do, and by focusing on our contribution to the global community, we can find fulfillment.