The Courage to Be Disliked (Ichiro Kishimi;Fumitake Koga) - Your Highlight on page 36 | Location 538-546 | Added on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 7:14:45 PM wants to leave the possibility of “I can do it if I try” open, by not committing to anything. He doesn’t want to expose his work to criticism, and he certainly doesn’t want to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection. He wants to live inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time, or that he could write if he just had the proper environment, and that he really does have the talent for it. In another five or ten years, he will probably start using other excuses like “I’m not young anymore” or “I’ve got a family to think about now.” YOUTH: I can relate all too well to how he must feel. PHILOSOPHER: He should just enter his writing for an award, and if he gets rejected, so be it. If he did, he might grow, or discover that he should pursue something different. Either way, he would be able to move on. That is what changing your current lifestyle is about. He won’t get anywhere by not submitting anything. ========== The Courage to Be Disliked (Ichiro Kishimi;Fumitake Koga) - Your Highlight on page 37 | Location 553-561 | Added on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 7:21:24 PM But if you change your lifestyle—the way of giving meaning to the world and yourself—then both your way of interacting with the world and your behavior will have to change as well. Do not forget this point: One will have to change. You, just as you are, have to choose your lifestyle. It might seem hard, but it is really quite simple. YOUTH: According to you, there’s no such thing as trauma, and environment doesn’t matter either. It’s all just baggage, and my unhappiness is my own fault, right? I’m starting to feel I’m being criticized for everything I’ve ever been and done! PHILOSOPHER: No, you are not being criticized. Rather, as Adler’s teleology tells us, “No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.” That you, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life. YOUTH: My life is determined at this exact point? PHILOSOPHER: Yes, because the past does not exist. ========== The Courage to Be Disliked (Ichiro Kishimi;Fumitake Koga) - Your Highlight on page 43 | Location 647-651 | Added on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 7:44:08 PM PHILOSOPHER: That’s right. Now, keeping this student’s story in mind, let’s think about your problems. You say that, at present, you notice only your shortcomings, and it’s unlikely that you’ll ever come to like yourself. And then you said, “I’m sure that no one would want to get involved with a guy as warped as me.” I’m sure you understand this already. Why do you dislike yourself? Why do you focus only on your shortcomings, and why have you decided to not start liking yourself? It’s because you are overly afraid of being disliked by other people and getting hurt in your interpersonal relationships. ========== The Courage to Be Disliked (Ichiro Kishimi;Fumitake Koga) - Your Highlight on page 43 | Location 652-656 | Added on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 7:44:53 PM YOUTH: What do you mean by that? PHILOSOPHER: Just like the young woman with the fear of blushing, who was afraid of being rejected by the man, you are afraid of being negated by other people. You’re afraid of being treated disparagingly, being refused, and sustaining deep mental wounds. You think that instead of getting entangled in such situations, it would be better if you just didn’t have relations with anyone in the first place. In other words, your goal is to not get hurt in your relationships with other people. ========== The Courage to Be Disliked (Ichiro Kishimi;Fumitake Koga) - Your Highlight on page 59 | Location 904-912 | Added on Wednesday, June 19, 2019 12:58:06 PM PHILOSOPHER: By doing that, my position becomes superior to other people’s, and I can become special. Quite a few people try to be “special” by adopting this kind of attitude when they are sick or injured, or suffering the mental anguish of heartbreak. YOUTH: So they reveal their feeling of inferiority and use it to their advantage? PHILOSOPHER: Yes. They use their misfortune to their advantage and try to control the other party with it. By declaring how unfortunate they are and how much they have suffered, they are trying to worry the people around them (their family and friends, for example), and to restrict their speech and behavior, and control them. The people I was talking about at the very beginning, who shut themselves up in their rooms, frequently indulge in feelings of superiority and use misfortune to their advantage. So much so that Adler himself pointed out, “In our culture weakness can be quite strong and powerful.” YOUTH: So weakness is powerful? ==========