What happens when two Japanese men encounter ancient Greek philosophy and distill pieces of Stoic and Socratic brilliance with all the practical force of Adlerian psychology? You get The Courage to Be Disliked, a book that one reviewer describes as, “Marie Kondo, but for your brain.” Alfred Adler (1870-1937) was an Austrian psychiatrist in the early 20th century, and the most obscure of the three giants of psychology, along with Freud and Jung. Although many people have lost track of Adler and his school of thought, his ideas have overflowed the confines of formal psychological study and spilled into numerous disciplines and mainstream vernacular. Among other accomplishments, Adler is credited with coining the term “inferiority complex.” His thoughts show up in works like Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. Freud and Jung are the most famous founding figures of psychoanalysis, but Kishimi and Koga argue in The Courage to Be Disliked that Adler’s ideas about how people change and how to become truly happy have life-changing (and life-simplifying) potential. 

Most people take it for granted that the world is a realm of profound chaos and complexity. The idea that life is simple is relegated to the realm of childish naïveté. Children enjoy a simple world without bills to pay or jobs to perform. They are free to play, laugh, and dream, and they see the future through hopeful eyes. The cruel, clarifying realities of war, discrimination, and loss have yet to darken their vision.

As children grow up a far bleaker reality emerges. The world becomes populated with problems, responsibilities, and tragedies. To complicate matters further, many people in the modern world do not submit to a deity of any kind. In the past it was simple: Obey your god and you find salvation. There was no over-thinking or doubt. Without a supernatural being to bring a sense of solace and stability, people depend on themselves to forge a way forward, which creates a consuming anxiety about life. When we consider all this, the idea that life and the world are simple seems out of the question.

All of the above is axiomatic for most. How can anyone look at the world and see it otherwise?

However counterintuitive it might seem, the truth is that life is simple, and so is the world. The fact that people cannot see it has less to do with the world and more to do with their perception of it. However real the objective world is, it is not the world we live in. Each of us experiences the world subjectively, in a way that no one else can experience. You necessarily see the world from a different position than the next person. Try as you might to show your world to the next person, you can’t.

So how do you see and approach the world? Each person has a lens through which they see the world, and that lens can be tinted dark, which dramatically alters the way they interact with life. You can lament the dark world or take the glasses off. It might be so bright that you put them back on or close your eyes. You may not even want to take them off at all. But if you find the courage, you can see the world as it is, tint-free.

This opens up the possibility for people to change. Anyone can be happy—truly happy. They are not stuck in a dim and darkened world if they choose a different one. The world will never change, but the way you see it could, and that is what will make all the difference.

We tend to view life in terms of etiology (the study of cause and effect) and do not  spend nearly enough time on teleology, which tries to understand phenomena in terms of goals or purposes.

This is rather abstract in principle, but the implications become more startling when we apply it to real life examples and how we process those real life examples. Let’s say you have a friend who is kind and talented, but he is also a recluse, afraid to leave his apartment. As soon as he steps outside the door, his anxiety spikes, his knees buckle, his breathing becomes labored, and his heart rate increases. He feels dizzy and staggers back into his home. He has become convinced that this is just the way he is, and there is nothing he can do about it.

Why do you think he is like that? To understand someone’s behavior in the present, most people go digging into the past. What was his upbringing like? Were his parents affectionate or abusive? Was he bullied at school? Let’s say your friend was abused and bullied when he was young. We might conclude that because of a lack of love, he has no confidence and the thought of facing the world “out there” is overwhelming. The causes are abuse and bullying and the effect is complete paralysis every time he ventures outside. This seems a perfectly plausible theory, but according to Adlerian psychology, we’ve gone about the problem wrong.

We naturally look for causes and effects. To make such causal links (i.e., to think etiologically) is problematic though. One of those problems is that the world becomes overly deterministic. The causal explanation holds up well if an abusive childhood always led to social isolation, as in your friend’s case. But there are plenty of people who have endured even more serious abuse and manage to leave their houses every day without anxiety and dread and even manage to live productive lives. You say your friend wants to change but can’t. The explanation for the inability to change is a damaging childhood environment. Past controls present.

The danger of etiological thinking is that when we constantly use past causes to explain a person's present, we have effectively locked people into deterministic molds that eliminate choice. Adlerian psychology breaks with these etiological cause-effect ways of thinking that are so pervasive that we take them for granted. Adler believed that not only does the past not control the present, the past does not even matter.

“But what about instances of serious trauma?” one might protest. Adlerian psychology emphatically rejects trauma. The language of trauma is textbook etiological thinking, and thus unhelpful. Adlerian psychologists set discussions of past trauma aside in order to examine the goals a person pursues in the present. Adler wrote that "no experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure...we make out of [our so-called traumas] whatever suits our purposes." In other words, the experiences we have, harrowing or otherwise, are fuel for the pursuit of whatever goal we were already after. We are not driven by the experience itself, but by whatever meaning we create around it.

So in the case of that reclusive friend, more profound than the abuse suffered in early childhood is the meaning he assigned to those episodes. That meaning could be something like, “I am abused and am not fit for society.” But it is his goal to maintain this narrative and his actions help him further cement that belief. Even his anxiety and fear responses are bodily manifestations of that narrative. The abuse may be very real, but for different reasons than most people suppose. The best thing you can do is find the goals implicit in your actions and change the goals if you do not like how those goals play out. This means interacting with the “you now” in the present.

We say he can’t leave because he is anxious, but what if we switched that to say he is anxious so that he can’t leave? By making the effect the cause, we find the motivating telos. He has concocted a story to carry out his goal of staying in his apartment, and creating anxiety and fear help him to fulfill that goal. 

In sum, we focus too much on etiology (cause and effect) and not enough on teleology (the purpose a phenomenon serves). Trauma is an outcome of etiological thinking that is as popular as it is unhelpful. Much more significant than any experience is the meaning we assign to it and goals we insist on living out based on that meaning. In your own life, it is best to start with the “you” in the present and find those stories you are determined to play out.

Most people who struggle with self-hatred describe their thought process as, “I don’t see any good qualities within myself, and therefore, I don’t like myself.” But it’s just the opposite. They don’t want to like themselves and thus refuse to see any good qualities within themselves, in order to maintain that goal of self-hatred.

Sometimes we rely on the very things we think we want to get rid of in ourselves. Disliking yourself is the goal you want to achieve, and finding good qualities in yourself would disrupt that teleology.

When someone comes looking for a cure for this or that habit that they wish were not there, an Adlerian psychologist refuses to treat it because it is usually a symptom of something deeper at play. Moreover, the thing they hate is often a way of protecting themselves. If they were really cured of that thing they hated, life would not be any better, whether it’s a student wanting to pass an exam or an employee hoping for a transfer. There was one young, very shy woman who wanted to be cured of her blushing so she could confidently walk up to the guy she liked and tell him she wanted him. But she actually “needed” her blushing because it protected her against the risk of a deeper fear of rejection. As long as she was blushing, she did not have to talk to him, and as long as she did not talk to him, she did not have to worry about rejection.

If you are like most people, you believe that no one would want to get involved with anyone as messed up as you feel you are. What you are really afraid of is the dislike of others and being hurt. The telos or goal is to reject yourself before someone else can.

The goal of avoiding hurt is easy to accomplish. Simply find all the reasons you are deficient, count them carefully and often, and slowly become the kind of person who does not enter into relationships with others. When you become the kind of person who does not do relationships well, you have an excuse to tell yourself when you get rejected. You could be loved if only you were not already the kind of person who is unlovable.

Your identity as antisocial is a virtue that you want to maintain, to live up to, as it were. There is some kind of perk you are getting out of it (probably avoidance of rejection) or you would have stopped it a long time ago.

According to Adlerian psychology, all our problems are interpersonal problems at root, and the vast majority of our interpersonal troubles spring from confusion over how to separate tasks. To determine whose task it is, ask, “Who, ultimately, is going to receive the result brought about by the choice that is made?”

Think of how many parents get on their child’s case for not studying. The parents make it their task to force their child to study and get good grades, but if you ask the question  who receives the result of the choice not to study, the answer is: the child. But how can this be? The child’s job is to study, but surely the parents’ task is to make sure the child does, right?

Wrong. Think about the phrase that parents often invoke: “It’s for your own good.” It is a deeply misleading phrase. When parents push their child to study, it is almost always about their own goal to be viewed by their community as good parents and upstanding citizens and to maintain control. Really, it is for the parents’ own good. The child will intuit the sleight of hand and resent it—even if he can’t yet put to words what he is feeling.

The parent should not choose willful ignorance about the child’s activity, but in order to clarify the separation of tasks, parents need to tell the child that studying is the child’s responsibility. Parents can be ready to help if help is requested, but otherwise it is best for them not to interfere.

The separation of tasks is needed in any relationship, not just between parents and children. With friends, business partners, family members, and marriage partners, clarifying tasks matters. A general rule of thumb is that the closer the relationship, the more necessary defining tasks becomes. The separation of tasks extends even to counselor-client relationships. Many people come to a psychologist or counselor with the expectation of being fixed. But you do not bring your soul to a therapist the way people bring their cars to the mechanic. The task of fixing a person is never the counselor’s job. It is up to the client to change.

Life is going to be burdensome until you learn to clarify tasks and give people back the tasks that are not yours. You will empower the person to whom the task properly belongs and you will relieve some of the suffering that comes from carrying more than is yours or feeling let down when others do not do your tasks for you. Take a load off your shoulders by discovering which tasks are yours and which are not.

Because all our problems are ultimately interpersonal problems, one might try to become free from problems by eradicating interpersonal relationships. No more relationships, no more problems, right? But even if we completely abandoned society, there would still be the voices of others inside our heads with which we would be forced to contend. It is impossible to be fully alone. Thus we do not find true freedom by getting rid of others, but by having the courage to be disliked by them.

When we look for the approval and recognition of others, we live other people’s lives rather than our own. We find ways to squeeze ourselves into molds of expectation that others have for us. We lose ourselves in the process.

The people who suffer are not the ones who live without recognition, but the ones who live for it. They put themselves at the mercy of people who may or may not give them what they want.

Despite our most meticulous efforts, some people are simply not going to like us. As long as we attempt to get recognition from everyone we will be stressed and anxious in our relationships and devastated when we are disliked. We will stew in the guilt and disappointment, wonder what we could have done differently, and mentally play out renditions of exchanges that would have been “better.”

The difference between true freedom and slavery to recognition is akin to the difference between pushing a boulder uphill and allowing the boulder to fall down a hill. Seeking recognition is an impulse as natural as gravity. It’s the equivalent of letting the boulder roll down the hill. It is not hard to start seeking recognition. But what happens to the boulder constantly hurtling downhill? The unique shape and edges are chipped away. There is no individual character to it. Finding the strength to push the boulder uphill is hard work, but as we build those muscles, we realize that we are much more ourselves and much more fulfilled. Our unique edges are not carved away.

When you are disliked by someone, it is a sign that you are not attempting to yield to their expectations for you, that you are moving freely, according to what you believe is best—not someone else. This will inevitably rub someone the wrong way. But being disliked is the price to be paid for freedom. You will not have the courage to be happy until you find the courage to be disliked.