Book: The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.

I love these kinds of dialogues where both sides know how to win something. Currently, there are not many good dialogues on our society, especially with the advent of social media (🙄), but I would not go into detail here.

The whole idea of Adlerian psychology is very interesting. In some parts, it reminds me of what stoicism says, especially the parts of the “here and now”.

It’s been a while since I was finding excuses to go out for a walk just to listen to the audiobook. :)

Here are my raw notes about the book:

  • It’s impossible to share your world with someone else. We have our view of the world
  • If you change, the world will be simpler
  • We’re looking into the world through dark glasses. We can complain about the glasses or just remove them. Do we have the courage to remove them while everyone else is using them?
  • Trauma doesn’t exist. What you feel is something you projected to meet a goal. Example: I don’t want to leave home, so your body will react to this goal. The feeling is real though.
  • A mom was shouting at her daughter and then the phone rings. She picks up the phone and talks in a soft voice. When the call ends, she gets back to shouting. Shouting was a tool to overpower her daughter, not just an instinct
  • The past doesn’t exist. You, living here and now, will determine your future
  • Our fear of being rejected creates some reactions (blushing, not wanting to get out of our house, etc.) to justify not exposing ourselves to something that could end badly (according to the philosopher)
  • It’s impossible to not get hurt or hurt other people when doing interpersonal relationship
  • All the problems we have are interpersonal relationship problems
  • The feeling of inferiority is a subjective view. We can see our inferiority as good or bad, depending on how we face them. The value of a diamond is subjective according to interpersonal relationships
  • One can use their inferiority feelings to dominate people by telling people how much they suffered, thus controlling their discourse. The most powerful being is the baby in terms of control.
  • Admitting mistakes is not a sign of defeat, it’s a way to grow. If you have the win-lose mindset, you will want to win all the time and will take the wrong path more often — 💭 So true. The worst part is how hard it is to tell people they are in a win-lose mindset.
  • Instead of trying to change others, you take the step over and change yourself
  • We have to live our lives for ourselves, not to praise others
  • The counselor doesn’t change someone’s life. You’re the only one who can change your life
  • Children do not act on their parents’ expectations. They are individuals on their own and will make their own decisions.
  • It doesn’t matter if you make your parents sad if you’re acting in the way you believe is right. You’re an individual
  • We shouldn’t be too close to our kids or they will be suffocating of care but we shouldn’t be too far either, or they will not consult us for advice
  • Everything is tied to rewards nowadays. We tend to want to give back to people whenever we receive something, even if the other person doesn’t want it. We should do whatever we want, not tie ourselves to rewards — 💭 I’m usually that person not wanting anything and trying to refuse stuff. I totally understand that.
  • Resisting one’s impulses is freedom. You should deliberately decide your future
  • Accept what one can’t change and have the courage to change what you can
  • Being taken advantage of is scary. It’s hard to be confident about other people. We can believe or we can doubt, see other people as comrades or enemies, the choice is ours
  • Workaholism is when you neglect your life tasks and use work as an excuse for that
  • It’s possible to “become a special being” by doing goods and bad things as both get people’s attention. It’s important to mind this with kids as our behavior may reinforce theirs for the good or bad.
  • Is it necessary to be special (for the good or the bad)? If you have the courage to be normal, your life view will change dramatically. Being normal is not being incapable.
  • A way of thinking is: what happened in the past has nothing to do with here and now and what will happen in the future is not something to worry about.
  • Life is not a straight line where you can see past and forward. Life is instead a series of moments
  • We have to live here and now. The past and the future don’t exist. — 💭 thinking about that a bit further, I was considering people like me who saves money. The interesting part (at least in my case) is that I save money because I like saving money and I don’t need it at this particular moment. I’m not saving money only because I’m dreaming of using it in the future and I’m constantly waiting for this moment. Am I living the here and now? 🤔
  • Life, in general, has no meaning whatsoever, but you can assign meaning to it. It’s a meaning for you, not for life. Life is what it is.