“The Courage to Be Disliked” by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga
Audiobook
Genre- Self help
Rating- 4/5 May need multiple listening to fully understand the essence of the book
Running length is around 5 hours or so
The whole book is like a Q and A between a Philosopher and a new Student. The author states that sometimes the student can be either him or anyone else.
The whole outlook of a dialogue and debate driven book is really interesting when you take into consideration that most discussion must be like a discussion and not like a sermon!
The book actually states how Socrates even though was much ahead of his time and wanted his point to be put across, he never wrote a thing and actually spent his time in discussion and open flow of ideas. In fact as mentioned in the book, it was finally his student who put the Socrates methods and teachings in a book!
Another chief genre of psychology introduced (or rather re-introduced!) is the the individual psychology of Alfred Adler, called the Adlerian Psychology! In fact the whole book is an introduction and extensions of this method.
The book goes into how it is different from Freudian methods of cause and affect and how it both Adler and Sigmund Freud were equal in terms of experience but they went their separate ways since the methodology was different.
The basic premise of separation is that while Freudian psychology puts too much importance on the situation and reasons why you performed a particular action like your childhood or financial situation. The Adlerian Psychology gives importance to the actions itself!
Like if you are getting angry, it is in fact completely in your control! You had decided to get angry and did it! What happened around you to make you angry is not relevant!
The student and the teacher go back and forth and the discussion moves on to a debate with the student not agreeing initially and later accepting it!
Apparently the most famous books like Dale Carnegie’s how to win friends and influence people and many others are based on this psychology and have in fact mentioned it!
It also mentions how you are not supposed to tell your child to do his or her work but simply tell her or him that you are there for him or her and he or she must do his role!
At one point the author says not to worry about the past and at another he tells not to think about the future much to the frustration of the student and the reader! The students asks the very questions which goes through the reader! So in that way it is an interesting ping pong match!
Some of the concepts went way over my head and it is understood that it needs another look!
All in all a very interesting and new concept and a must have self help book!
The core matter is that you must not wait for the validation of others. You cannot make everyone happy and if someone is not happy with you it is still ok!
The only way you can be happy is that at some point in spite of doing your actions or role in the society you will have the courage to be disliked and you are ok with it!
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