Introduction

Hello booklovers and focus24 family. ‘The Courage to be disliked’, the book which is talk of the town, I just finished this book twice to make this review as i wanted to make it sure that I do not end up recommending something which I am not convinced of.

About The Author

The book is co-authored by Ichiro Kishimi & Fumitake Koga. Ichiro KISHIMI is a Philosopher, Adlerian psychologist and translator of English and German languages.

What Made This Book Unique For Me

‘The Power of Now’ by Ekhort Tolle , and this one book in my hand are the only two books in my 15 years of reading non-fiction that made me confused at the end about whether I should have read these or not. Not because the books are bad, but because these books shackle the foundations of your belief systems so much that if you don’t grasp the message exactly as being given, you are under a serious threat of losing your mind. Stay with me for a while as I give you the complete summary of the book.

What The Book Is All About

The book is based on the Psychology of Mr. Alfred Adler, a famous Austrian psychologist. The author repeatedly refers to the concept in the book as Adlerian Psychology.

Style Of The Book

The book is shaped in the form of conversations between two characters, referred to as ‘Youth’ & a ‘Philosopher’. The youth in quest of knowledge and search of answers on life, visits the philosopher for 5 nights and they discuss various philosophical issues. According to the author, the purpose of giving this book the shape of conversation was inspired from the discussions between Socrates and Plato.

As you might know, Socrates left no written piece of thoughts behind for generations to come. However, his student Plato wrote down the conversations between him and his master, which are now a big philosophical treasure. The author says that the concepts being discussed were so difficult to understand that there had to arise various questions in the minds of the readers if the book had been written in simple descriptive form. So, he brings up the possible queries that readers might have in the shape of ‘youth’ debating with the ‘philosopher’.

Our perception is like well water

At one point in the book, the author says that the state of happiness and sadness is just the perception of looking at things, exactly like the temperature of well water. The water from the well remains at 60 60-degree temperature throughout the year. If you drink it in summer, you would feel its coolness, and during winters it appears to be warm. The feeling of being hot and cold is because of the temperature of the surroundings and not the water itself. Similarly, our reaction to any aspect of our life is based on our society.  Every aspect of our life can be looked at either positively or negatively basing on our state of mind.

The urge of being important

A Strange concept that I found repeated in the book ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People, ’ which I highly recommend by the way, is using any means to get attention or superiority – even by showing how weak you are. Yes, gaining superiority by showing weakness. Adlerian psychology portrays that the urge for attention can push human beings to any limits. People use various means and ways to stay important, and one of those is relying on misery. They explain how unlucky they are, how bad the society has been to them, how their life has been full of hardships, and all that stuff is just to remain significant and abnormal. The way a child wants attention of the parents, and if he does not find any suitable way, he would start shouting, throwing things away and becoming a bad child but, would crave for attention at all cost. The same thing continues with our minds as we grow up.

Out of 10 People, 7 will ignore, 2 will like, & 1 will hate you

I loved this beautiful concept shared by the author about the perception of society. He says that ‘In the teachings of Judaism, it is believed that “If there are ten people, one will be someone who criticizes you no matter what you do. This person will come to dislike you, and you will not learn to like him either. Then, there will be two others who accept everything about you and whom you accept too, and you will become close friends with them. The remaining seven people will be neither of these types.” Now, do you focus on the one person who dislikes you? Do you pay more attention to the two who love you? Or would you focus on the crowd, the other seven? A person who is lacking in harmony of life will see only the one person he dislikes and will make a judgment of the world from that.

Conclusion

You will find dozens of other thought-provoking ideas in the book, which I am sure you would love to read. Overall, an interesting pick and a book worth reading. I highly recommend you consider giving this book a read. Here is the link to order the book online https://amzn.to/3WPAC3p (affiliate link). You can also listen to free audiobooks, having free trial registration. That’s all for today. hope you liked this blog. Till next time, stay hard, stay strong, and stay focused with Focus24.