If you think that your past determines your present, you end up with determinism; your future has already been decided by your past. In “Adlerian psychology”, we don’t think about past causes, but rather about present goals. If you stay like this, you can respond to events as they occur, and you can guess the results. But if you choose a new lifestyle, no one can predict what might happen to your new self. A student complains that she has a fear of blushing because she fears rejection.
In reality, she fabricated the fear as an excuse to not confess her feelings for someone. Adlerian psychology is a psychology of changing oneself, not psychology for changing others. The pursuit of superiority is the mindset of taking a single step forward on your own feet. A healthy feeling of inferiority doesn’t come from comparing oneself to others but from one’s comparison with their ideal self. When you’re able to feel “people are my comrades,” your way of looking at the world will change.
Wishing so hard to be recognized will lead to a life of following expectations held by other people who want you to be “this kind of person”. You throw away who you really are and live other people’s lives. Therefore, you should deny your desire for recognition. There may be a person who doesn’t think well of you, but that’s not your task. All you can do with regard to your own life is to choose the best path that you believe in.
We need to think from the perspective of “whose task is this?” and separate our own tasks from other people’s tasks. For example, studying at school is the child’s task, not the parent’s – you should not worry about or intrude on others’ tasks. When you praise, you’re creating a hierarchical relationship and seeing the other person as beneath you. You can convey words of gratitude instead. The goal of interpersonal relationships is a feeling of community.
To get that feeling, you should make the switch from self-interest to concern for others. Don’t limit yourself to one community; there are always more and larger communities out there. Three things are needed: self-acceptance, confidence in others, and contribution to others. Life is a series of moments, neither the past nor the future exists. Don’t concern yourself with arriving somewhere by doing it.
You can arrive somewhere as a result of dancing, but there is no particular destination. Among those who danced this dance of violin, there are people who became professional musicians. Among people who danced the dance of writing, some became authors.
The Courage to be Disliked is a book that instructs readers on how to have the courage to live an authentic life. In order to help declutter your mind, spend some time in meditation with your book club. Have your group perform a Socratic circle, a literary genre derived from Plato’s dialogues. Describe a time when your own feeling of inferiority acted as a launchpad to change or move forward in your life.
Random Citizen 