The Courage to Be Disliked

Review

I picked this book up because someone at the TCS Bibliography Group had mentioned that this was a life-changing book. And I thought, if that does not make it a worthy recommendation, what else can. On the first day, when I started reading it, I realised the assertion that this is a life changing book was correct, and it would be a life-changing book for me as well.

There are not that many books like that. In fact, I can count three, who have been that for me - The Road Less Travelled, Outlive, and this.

Perhaps it was because I had read The Road Less Travelled before, or I have been interested in philosophy and psychology of self, since long, that some of the concepts felt familiar to me. Perhaps some of that is spirituality. I saw a couple of BK Shivani’s videos around the same time I started reading this book and they talk about similar things. BK Shivani’s teachings are centred around the soul and delivered through meditation, etc. whereas Adler’s are a secular philosophy and this book at least does not talk too much about the practical aspects of the philosophy - the how to implement this in your life aspects. The next book in the series does.

Despite that, I found myself taking constant notes while I read the book. It is a dense book, structured as a conversation between a philosopher and his student (read the afterword), across five nights and concepts.

The book starts with asserting that we can change ourselves, that past events don’t determine our present. That our goals cause us to behave in certain ways.

The next assertion is at the core of Adlerian philosophy - that all problems are interpersonal relationship problems. That inferiority and superiority complexes are both about feeling inferior.

On the third night, they talk about separating one’s tasks. Freedom starts when you let go of the want to be liked by others.

The next assertion is about what gives us happiness - contributing to commons, treating others as our comrades. It introduced the concept of horizontal relationships, where no one is above or below anyone else.

The last chapter argues that life is meaningless, whatever meaning life has, is to be provided by us. It asks us to live in the present, dancing.

I liked reading it. I like reading books about psychology. I liked that it introduced so may new concepts to me.