The courage to be disliked

   

        Hi, this is Jan and this log is about the 4th and 5th chapters of the book ”The courage to be disliked” and about the whole reflection about this book, as before, this book is written in the dialogue of the youth and the philosopher. After talking to the philosopher for several weeks , the youth seemed to accept the new idea of Adler psychology and came to meet the philosopher again to clarify what he was confused about.

Like I mentioned in the last log, I have the question of how we balance fulfilling life tasks well between keeping our world simple by discarding others tasks. What’s more, I found it difficult to practice because we can not ask others to do so as we finally achieve how to discard others tasks, but our life tasks are connected to others. The youth has the same questions and in the beginning of the 4th chapter, the philosopher answered that discarding tasks is only a starting point and the goal of interpersonal relationships is a feeling of community. In Adler psychology, all problems are interpersonal relationship problems and also interpersonal relationships are the source of happiness. The feeling of community can be referred to as social interest, and the point is to switch the attachment to self to the concern of others. The philosopher talked about people who are incapable of carrying out the separation of tasks and those who are obsessed with the desire for recognition are self-centered. Self-centered person in the community has the idea that people will do something for him, and when his expectation can not be satisfied, he feels disillusioned and even insulted, and starts to view people as enemies. As a part of this community, we can earn the sense of belonging by making an active commitment, and that is facing life tasks. Knowing the starting point and the goal of interpersonal relationships, the youth asked about how to build interpersonal relationships and at the same time we cooperate and act with each other in harmony, and this is about the concept of horizontal relationship and that is to advocate the idea of equality and then dig into the feeling of community can be conducted in three things : self-acceptance, confidence in others and contribution to others.

All of these thesis related to the theories they talked about before and the youth had nothing to argue with the philosopher, and agreed with Adler psychology gradually though the process of the talk with the philosopher. In these two parts, I think a sentence can greatly narrate the feeling of community, in other word, the happiness. “God grants me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom always to tell the difference” from the Serenity Prayer. According to the philosopher, people are aware of their worth when they are able to feel "I am of use to someone and the feeling is subjective, in other word, happiness is the subjective contribution to the community, in this way, everyone can get happiness. After finishing all of this book, like the subtitle, I think this is a thought-provoking read and how to let yourself be free, and you can get happiness. The reader can indulge into the conversation because of the character of the youth, and there is no profound background knowledge of psychology, which helps me a lot to understand the content. To sum up, I learned that being hated by others is the improvement that  you have escaped from the way to live and grow in the expectations of others. It's my first time to understand what courage is, and it also reminds me of a sentence I saw in another book several years ago, courage is a thing too great to have, courage is willing to start changing. Though I still think it is hard, I can practice thinking in a new way I learned in this book, and hope that even a little, I will have the courage to change to achieve a better myself.