The Courage to be Disliked

Key Takeaways

1. Continually separate your own tasks from other people’s tasks. Discard other people’s tasks.
2. No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it has no bearing at all on how you live from now on.
3. It is because you are living in vertical relationships that you want to be praised.
4. It is when you are able to feel “I am beneficial to the community” that you can have a true sense of your worth.
5. Happiness is the feeling of contribution.
6. Why is it necessary to be special? Be normal. You do not need to flaunt your superiority.
7. Whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual.
8. You set objectives for the distant future, and think of now as your preparatory period. You think, I really want to do this, and I’ll do it when the time comes. This is a way of living that postpones life.

Notes

• No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure.
• Nothing is actually determined by those influences.
• We are not determined by our experiences, but by the meaning we give them.
• We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences - the so-called trauma - but instead we make out of them whatever suits our purposes.
• You are not controlled by emotion.
• You are not controlled by the past.
• People are not driven by past causes, but move toward goals that they themselves set.
• Personality is something that you choose for yourself.

He dreams of becoming a novelist, but he never completes his work. He says his job keeps him too busy, and he can never find enough time. No! It’s actually that he wants to leave the possibility of “I can do it if I try” open. He doesn’t want to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection. He wants to live inside the realm of possibilities.

• No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it has no bearing at all on how you live from now on.
• All problems are interpersonal relationship problems.
• Internal worry does not exist. Whatever the worry that may arise, the shadows of other people are always present.
• Subjectivity allows you to make your own choice - the choice to view facts as either an advantage or disadvantage.
• People use their misfortune to their advantage and try to control the other party with it, by declaring how unfortunate they are.
• Withdraw from places that are preoccupied with winning and losing. When you are trying to be yourself, competition will inevitably get in the way.
• There are two objectives for ideal behavior: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society.
• Think with the perspective of “Whose task is this?” and continually separate your own tasks from other people’s tasks. Discard other people’s tasks.
• What another person thinks of you is that person’s task, not yours. Just face your own tasks in your own life without lying.
• We must not seek reward, and we must not be tied to it.
• There is no reason of any sort that you should not live your life as you please.
• Freedom is being disliked by other people - it is proof that you are exercising your freedom and living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in accordance with your own principles.
• Conducting yourself in such a way as to not be disliked by anyone is an extremely unfree way of living.
• Praise implies the passing of judgment by a person of ability on a person of no ability. You praise to manipulate.
• If you really have a feeling of contribution, you will no longer have any need for recognition from others.

Why do you intervene - intruding on other people’s tasks? Because you see the other party as beneath you. Through intervention, you try to lead the other party in the desired direction. You have convinced yourself that you are right and that the other party is wrong.

Details

• Author: Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
• My rating: ★★★★★
• ISBN: