Notes & Highlights for The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi

But I did find this—it’s not my own idea, but something I came across at the library, a line from a novel by Dostoevsky: “Money is coined freedom.” What do you think? Isn’t “coined freedom” a rather refreshing term? But seriously, I was fascinated to find this one line that drove right to the heart of this thing called money.

For instance, when reading a book, if one brings one’s face too close to it, one cannot see anything. In the same way, forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance. When the distance gets too small and people become stuck together, it becomes impossible to even speak to each other. But the distance must not be too ... See more

To you, not liking yourself is a virtue.

I am not the center of the world. Our world is a globe, not a map that has been cut out on a plane.

There is no escape from your own subjectivity. At present, the world seems complicated and mysterious to you, but if you change, the world will appear more simple. The issue is not about how the world is, but about how you are.

Once it has begun to roll downhill, it will continue to roll until released from the natural laws of gravity and inertia. But we are not stones. We are beings who are capable of resisting inclination. We can stop our tumbling selves and climb uphill. The desire for recognition is probably a natural desire. So are you going to keep rolling downhill ... See more

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.

being alone isn’t what makes you feel lonely. Loneliness is having other people and society and community around you, and having a deep sense of being excluded from them. To feel lonely, we need other people.

You believe in your partner; that is your task. But how that person acts with regard to your expectations and trust is other people’s tasks. When you push your wishes without having drawn that line, before you know it you’re engaging in stalker-like intervention. Suppose your partner did not act as you had wished. Would you still be able to believe... See more

First of all, people enter this world as helpless beings. And people have the universal desire to escape from that helpless state. Adler called this the “pursuit of superiority.”