The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

by Ichiro Kishimi

None of us live in an objective world, but instead in a subjective world that we ourselves have given meaning to. The world you see is different from the one I see, and it’s impossible to share your world with anyone else.

• aetiology (the study of causation)

  • Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be blamed on your past or your environment.

• teleology (the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon, rather than its cause).

‘No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. 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. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.’

‘People are not driven by past causes, but move toward goals that they themselves set’

And it isn’t that you lack competence. You just lack courage. One might say you are lacking in the courage to be happy.