The Courage to Be Disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

Adler is saying that the pursuit of superiority and the feeling of inferiority are not diseases but stimulants to normal, healthy striving and growth. If it is not used in the wrong way, the feeling of inferiority, too, can promote striving and growth.

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YOUTH: Well, that’s true. There’s no doubt about it—if the feeling of inferiority is strong, most people will become negative and say, “I’m not good enough anyway.” Because that’s what a feeling of inferiority is. PHILOSOPHER: No, that’s not a feeling of inferiority—that’s an inferiority complex.

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YOUTH: No, it’s a legitimate causal relationship. If you’re not well educated, it takes away your chances of getting work or making it in the world. You’re regarded as low on the social scale, and you can’t succeed. That’s not an excuse at all. It’s just a cold hard fact, isn’t it? PHILOSOPHER: No, you are wrong. YOUTH: How? Where am I wrong? PHILOSOPHER: What you are calling a causal relationship is something that Adler explains as “apparent cause and effect.” That is to say, you convince yourself that there is some serious causal relationship where there is none whatsoever. The other day, someone told me, “The reason I can’t get married easily is that my parents got divorced when I was a child.” From the viewpoint of Freudian etiology (the attributing of causes), the parents’ divorce was a great trauma, which connects in a clear causal relationship with one’s views on marriage. Adler, however, with his stance of teleology (the attributing of purpose), rejects such arguments as “apparent cause and effect.” YOUTH: But even so, the reality is that having a good education makes it easier to be successful in society. I had thought you were wise to the ways of the world. PHILOSOPHER: The real issue is how one confronts that reality. If what you are thinking is, I’m not well educated, so I can’t succeed, then instead of I can’t succeed, you should think, I don’t want to succeed.

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YOUTH: I don’t want to succeed? What kind of reasoning is that? PHILOSOPHER: It’s simply that it’s scary to take even one step forward; also, that you don’t want to make realistic efforts. You don’t want to change so much that you’d be willing to sacrifice the pleasures you enjoy now—for instance, the time you spend playing and engaged in hobbies. In other words, you’re not equipped with the courage to change your lifestyle. It’s easier with things just as they are now, even if you have some complaints or limitations.

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PHILOSOPHER: A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to others; it comes from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self.

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PHILOSOPHER: But do other people actually look at you so much? Are they really watching you around the clock and lying in wait for the perfect moment to attack? It seems rather unlikely. A young friend of mine, when he was a teenager, used to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror arranging his hair. And once, when he was doing that, his grandmother said, “You’re the only one who’s worried how you look.” He says that it got a bit easier for him to deal with life after that. YOUTH: Hey, that’s a dig at me, isn’t it? Sure, maybe I do see the people around me as enemies. I’m constantly in fear of being attacked, of the arrows that could come flying at me at any moment. I always think that I’m being watched by others, that I’m being subjected to harsh judgment, and that I’m going to be attacked. And it’s probably true that this is a self-conscious reaction, just like the mirror-obsessed teenager. The people of the world aren’t paying attention to me. Even if I were to go walking on my hands down the street, they’d take no notice! But I don’t know. Are you saying, after all, that my feeling of inferiority is something that I chose, that has some sort of goal? That just doesn’t make any sense to me. PHILOSOPHER: And why is that?

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PHILOSOPHER: One more thing about power struggles. In every instance, no matter how much you might think you are right, try not to criticize the other party on that basis. This is an interpersonal relationship trap that many people fall into. YOUTH: Why’s that? PHILOSOPHER: The moment one is convinced that “I am right” in an interpersonal relationship, one has already stepped into a power struggle. YOUTH: Just because you think you’re right? No way, that’s just blowing things all out of proportion. PHILOSOPHER: I am right. That is to say, the other party is wrong. At that point, the focus of the discussion shifts from “the rightness of the assertions” to “the state of the interpersonal relationship.” In other words, the conviction that “I am right” leads to the assumption that “this person is wrong,” and finally it becomes a contest and you are thinking, I have to win. It’s a power struggle through and through.

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YOUTH: So when you’re hung up on winning and losing, you lose the ability to make the right choices? PHILOSOPHER: Yes. It clouds your judgment, and all you can see is imminent victory or defeat. Then you turn down the wrong path. It’s only when we take away the lenses of competition and winning and losing that we can begin to correct and change ourselves.

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Adler made three categories of the interpersonal relationships that arise out of these processes. He referred to them as “tasks of work,” “tasks of friendship,” and “tasks of love,” and all together as “life tasks.”

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Consider the reality of the desire for recognition. How much do others pay attention to you, and what is their judgment of you? That is to say, how much do they satisfy your desire? People who are obsessed with such a desire for recognition will seem to be looking at other people, while they are actually looking only at themselves. They lack concern for others and are concerned solely with the “I.” Simply put, they are self-centered.

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With regard to this issue of community feeling, there was a person who asked Adler a similar question. Adler’s reply was the following: “Someone has to start. Other people might not be cooperative, but that is not connected to you. My advice is this: you should start. With no regard to whether others are cooperative or not.” My advice is exactly the same.

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