How To Achieve Real Happiness
I credit this book for making me happier than ever
With over 3.5 million copies sold, The Courage To Be Disliked, an instant hit in Japan, has become a worldwide phenomenon.
“The courage to be happy also includes the courage to be disliked. When you have gained that courage, your interpersonal relationships will all at once change into things of lightness.” — Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga
The fact that the book is organized as a dialogue between a young man who is unhappy and a philosopher who lives outside of his city is one of the things that I like best about it. Throughout the course of their conversations, the philosopher encourages him to accept responsibility for his own life and happiness.
Don't focus on what’s wrong with you or on your past trauma
The authors of the book take a firm stance against the idea that trauma is a significant issue. I get that it would sound a little bit unusual to assert that there is no such thing as trauma.
The book, however, questions the notion that none of our current problems should be linked to any traumatic events or past trauma. In fact, it encourages the notion that we may change who we are at any time.
Your past does not have any bearing on your present; rather, the meaning that you give to your past is what has an effect on your present.
What if you could identify two or three events from your youth as the cause of every defect you possess? Changes to them may only be made in the present moment. You need to trust that something new is possible if you want to change ingrained patterns. And you can always choose to view things from a different angle.
Your future has already been determined by your past if you believe that your past determines your present. The significance you give to your history is what determines your present rather than your past itself.
Feelings are made up
Feelings of inferiority are more based on how people see things than on facts. There are two ways to look at being shorter than average: as a disadvantage since you don’t seem as threatening, or as an advantage because you let others feel more at ease.
Subjectivity does have one advantage: it gives you the freedom to choose. Consider everything as having a benefit or a drawback. We can change interpretations as much as we like, but we cannot change objective facts.
The urge to escape from one’s defenseless situation is a universal trait shared by all living things. This is referred to as the quest for superiority. If not misused, inferiority complexes can serve as effective growth catalysts.
But other people lack the guts to move forward and refuse to acknowledge that the situation can be improved with reasonable efforts; instead, they give up and claim that they are incompetent or that they wouldn’t succeed even if they tried. The term “inferiority complex” refers to this. using a sense of inadequacy as a justification for doing nothing. Thinking, “I’m not smart, so I can’t succeed,” or “I’m not attractive, so I can’t find love.”
There are many who likewise struggle with a superiority complex. They put on an act of superiority and revel in a manufactured sense of superiority. Extol prior successes and relive recollections.
Complexes like this, which are created artificially in the brain, prevent us from experiencing greater joy in life.
Most of what we think of as competition is just made up
To strive for superiority means to adopt the mentality of moving forward one step at a time using just your own abilities. not the competitive attitude of wanting to outperform others.
Comparing oneself to others is not the source of a healthy feeling of inadequacy; rather, comparing oneself to one’s ideal self is the source of such a sensation.
The fact that people are constantly pitted against one another in an effort to improve their standing in the eyes of society is one of the primary contributors to the unhappiness of a large number of them.
If you view your interactions with other people as a competition, you will interpret the happiness of others as “my failure,” and as a result, you will be unhappy in life.
Instead, let’s alter the way we see the world. Let’s avoid viewing those around us as rivals. Our perspective will change, and we’ll be happier overall.
Hurting our happiness
You should ignore your need for approval. Both you and those around you aren’t living to meet each other’s expectations; neither are they living to meet your expectations.
You won’t carry out your own way of living unless you are unconcerned by other people’s opinions, have no fear of other people disliking you, and pay the price that you might never be recognized. You will never be free.
It’s not your job to change the mind of someone who doesn’t like you.
When it comes to your own life, all you can do is take the best course of action that you can reasonably believe in. How are people evaluating that? That is not your responsibility, and you have no control over it.
