The Courage To Be Disliked Summary – Story of PHILOSOPHER

The Courage To Be Disliked is inspired from Alfred Adler’s psychological work, the author Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi has explained everything in a simple way, so humans like you and me can understand, the complex work of Alfred Adler.

Alfred Adler believes that your happiness is in your hands, no one can make you happy from the inside until and unless you say within yourself that I’m happy.

The Courage To Be Disliked Summary

The book has five chapters and each chapter has a small section, in total, the book has 266 pages.

So we will go chapter by chapter, so you can get a clear idea about the book but before that let me share with you core takeaways.

• Unhappiness is something that you choose for yourself.
• Everyone can change, it’s just that, they don’t want to change.
• Anger is a tool that everyone should use very wisely.
• Life is very simple, don’t make it complicated.
• Don’t expect anything from anyone.
• You have the power to do anything, don’t stop in the middle because of the past or emotions.
• Every problem happens because of interpersonal relationships.
• Don’t Desire recognition, do whatever you want to do…
• Be in the present.
• Self Affirmation is a lie, accept yourself.
• Every person on this earth needs something from someone, understand that.

Deny Trauma

Let’s say, you have a friend who wants to change, he wants to go outside, hang out with people, and do lots of other things but he can’t because he is an introvert…

Here, let me just add some paragraphs from the book, so you can understand better.

PHILOSOPHER: Your friend is insecure, so he can’t go out. Think about it the other way around. He doesn’t want to go out, so he’s creating a state of anxiety.

YOUTH: Huh?

PHILOSOPHER: Think about it this way. Your friend had the goal of not going out beforehand, and he’s been manufacturing a state of anxiety and fear as a means to achieve that goal. In Adlerian psychology, this is called ‘teleology’.

YOUTH: You’re joking! My friend has imagined his anxiety and fear. So, would you go so far as saying that my friend is just pretending to be sick?

PHILOSOPHER: He is not pretending to be sick. The anxiety and fear your friend is feeling are real. On occasion, he might also suffer from migraines and violent stomach cramps. However, these too are symptoms that he has created in order to achieve the goal of not going out.

In other words, he has already made up his mind to not go outside and he already has an excuse for that.

He has created some imaginary world where he thinks, he is more okay at home rather than going outside and talking to other people or spending some time with other people.

If you feel that something is not going the way you wanted then sit down and see things as it is and make a change, don’t just blame the situation on someone or even on yourself, do something about it.

Just don’t be on the loophole, do something.

Interpersonal Relationship

Once open time, there was a girl and her fear was blushing, whenever he meets men, she starts blushing.

Now, she also liked one man and she wanted to say “I love You” but because of her fear of blushing, she couldn’t do it…

Whenever she goes outside, no one notices her blushing, she just created that fear within herself. People around couldn’t care less but she thought, what this or that people will think.

This is where she goes to Philosopher, she said everything about her fear of blushing but Philosopher didn’t do anything and he said,

“If I cure her fear of blushing and even after that, if she can’t talk with the man she loves then she will come back and ask me to give her the fear back. She is giving excuses, there is no fear, but there is an excuse for rejection.”

Now, after Philosopher says no,

She went to a party where she didn’t know that the man she loves will be there and somehow, he comes to her and started talking and he say, I wanted to talk to you for a long time,

She was shocked,

He was still talking and she was listing to him and there was one time when he said, I love you…

What did you learn from this story? If you ask me,

What I learned is, no matter what kind of fear you have, it’s all in your mind, it’s all about what people will say about it. You just have to accept the Pros and Cons of yourself and try to learn new things every day.

Now, I have only given you one example, this chapter has about 50 pages and you should learn more about this topic because it will change the way you think about yourself.

Recognition

You want validation from others, it could be your friends, mother, brother, father, or someone you don’t even know. You do something for attention and when you don’t get attention, you may feel sad and unhappy.

I just love one quote from Courage To Be Disliked,

“If you’re not living your life for yourself then who is going to live it for you”

If you can understand a bit then I think you won’t ever look for validation from anyone.

Another, quote that’s it, no more, I promise

“They are suffering trying to meet the expectations of other people, the expectations of their parents and teachers.”

I learned this when I was 22 years old and once you understand that you don’t have to make other people happy, you just have to be happy within yourself and that’s it.

The Courage To Be Disliked Review

I really want you to read this book and understand why people do, what they do.

There are many things that I have learned from Courage To Be Disliked and I have shared quite of few here. Whatever have written, I hope, it encourages you to read the book.

So go read it, it’s a must-read…