The Courage to Be Disliked: Adlerian Freedom and Alfred Adler

If you feel like your life is a complicated web of past mistakes and future anxieties, you aren’t alone—but you might be wrong about why it feels that way. Imagine for a second that the world is actually simple and that happiness is available to you right this very moment, not as a reward for years of therapy or a promotion, but as a choice. This is the staggering claim at the heart of "The Courage to Be Disliked" by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. The book introduces us to a philosopher and a skeptical young man who engage in a series of intense debates over five nights. The philosopher follows the teachings of Alfred Adler, a contemporary of Freud and Jung who broke away from them to propose something far more radical: that you are not determined by your past, but by the future goals you are moving toward. It is a philosophy of total freedom, but it comes with a price that most people are terrified to pay—the willingness to be disliked by others. You see, the reason life feels so heavy isn't because of what happened to you ten years ago or because the economy is struggling. According to this Adlerian view, we make our own worlds complicated because complexity gives us an excuse to stay exactly where we are. If the world is simple, then the burden of changing your life rests entirely on your shoulders, and that is a terrifying prospect.

In this exploration, we are going to tear down the walls of what you think you know about psychology and trauma. We will look at why you might actually be "choosing" your own unhappiness because it serves a hidden purpose, and how you can use a tool called the "separation of tasks" to instantly delete half of the stress in your life. We are also going to look at the sharpest criticisms of this work—because as liberating as it sounds, some of its claims, like the total rejection of trauma, are deeply controversial and even clash with what we know about how the brain actually works. This isn't just a book summary; it is a deep dive into the mechanics of human agency. By the time we finish, you will have a roadmap for navigating your relationships without the crushing need for approval, and you will have to decide for yourself if you have the courage to live a life that is truly yours. So, let’s dive into the first and most jarring shift in perspective: the idea that your past doesn't actually matter as much as you think it does.

To understand why you feel stuck, you have to look at how you view cause and effect. Most of us are accidental Freudians; we believe in etiology, which is the study of causation. We think, "I am shy today because my parents were overbearing," or "I can’t trust people because I was betrayed in a previous relationship." In this model, the past is a straight line that points directly at your current suffering. But the Adlerian philosopher in the book argues for something called teleology—the study of the purpose of a given phenomenon rather than its cause. Instead of asking "Where did this come from?", teleology asks "What is the goal of this behavior?". This shift is like turning a spotlight onto a dark stage. If you are currently feeling anxious and staying inside your house, an etiological view says you are staying inside because of past trauma. The teleological view, however, suggests you are producing the anxiety in order to achieve the goal of staying inside. Why would you want that? Perhaps because staying inside keeps you safe from the risk of being hurt or judged by others. In this sense, the emotion is a tool you use to reach a specific end.

This sounds incredibly harsh at first—and the youth in the book reacts with genuine anger, calling it a way of blaming people for their own misery. But notice the hidden power in this perspective. If your past causes your present, you are a victim of history; you can’t change what happened twenty years ago, so you are essentially a finished product, unable to move. But if you are using your "trauma" to serve a current goal, you can change that goal right now. The philosopher uses the example of a person who gets angry and shouts at a waiter. We usually say, "I lost my temper and shouted." Adler would say, "You wanted to shout to make the waiter submit to you, so you created the emotion of anger as a tool to accomplish that". We know this is true because if a friend walked up to you in the middle of that shouting match, you would likely instantly drop the anger and speak calmly to them, only to pick the anger back up when they leave. The anger isn't a force that controls you; it is a faucet you turn on and off to get what you want.

When you apply this to your own life, it starts to reveal the "life-lies" we tell ourselves to avoid the pain of growth. A life-lie is a pretext we use to shift responsibility for our situation onto something else—our past, our environment, or our personality. You might tell yourself, "If only I were more attractive, I would find a partner," but the Adlerian view suggests you are actually clinging to that "deficiency" because it protects you from the much scarier possibility of being rejected for who you really are even if you were attractive. It is a way of keeping your potential in a box so you never have to test it. This is why the book argues that people aren't ruled by emotions; they use emotions to stay in their current "lifestyle," which is Adler’s word for your personality or worldview. Your lifestyle is something you chose around the age of ten, often unconsciously, but because it is a choice, it can be un-chosen. The difficulty isn't that you can't change; it's that you lack the courage to face the anxiety that comes with a new way of being.

If you’ve ever felt exhausted by trying to please everyone around you, the "separation of tasks" is the concept that might finally let you breathe. It is arguably the most practical and immediately applicable part of Adlerian psychology. The core idea is simple: all interpersonal relationships are caused by people intruding on other people’s tasks or having others intrude on your tasks. To figure out whose task something is, you simply ask: "Who will ultimately bear the consequence of the decision brought about by this choice?". Take a common example: a parent trying to force a child to study. Is studying the parent's task or the child's? Since the child is the one who will bear the consequences of not learning, it is the child's task. When a parent shouts and demands that the child study, they are intruding on the child's task, which inevitably leads to conflict and resentment. This doesn't mean the parent should be indifferent—Adlerian psychology suggests you should be ready to help if asked—but you cannot force the change. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.

This principle becomes life-changing when you apply it to your own need for approval. You probably spend a significant amount of energy worrying about what your boss, your partner, or even strangers on the street think of you. But according to the philosopher, whether or not someone likes you is their task, not yours. Your task is to live your life according to your own principles and to do your best in your work and relationships. How people react to that—whether they judge you, praise you, or ignore you—is entirely up to them. You have zero control over it. When you try to make people like you, you are essentially trying to intrude on their task of forming their own opinions. It is a form of manipulation, and it is exhausting because you are trying to manage something that is fundamentally outside of your control.

This is where the title of the book, "The Courage to Be Disliked," finally makes sense. True freedom is not about being antisocial or mean; it is about having the courage to follow your own path even if it means some people will disapprove. If you are living in a way that ensures no one ever dislikes you, you aren't living your own life—you are living a life designed by other people’s expectations. You are being "un-free". The moment you realize that other people’s opinions of you are their problem, not yours, a massive weight lifts off your shoulders. You stop being a person who is constantly "gauging the room" and start being someone who acts with integrity. This separation of tasks provides a clear boundary that protects your mental energy. It allows you to say, "I am responsible for my actions and my choices, and you are responsible for how you feel about them." It is the ultimate antidote to the "people-pleasing" trap that keeps so many of us in a state of chronic anxiety.

Now, we have to address the elephant in the room—and the part of the book that makes many readers, and professional psychologists, very uncomfortable. The philosopher explicitly states: "Trauma does not exist". In the Adlerian framework, no experience is in itself a cause of success or failure. Instead, we make out of our experiences whatever suits our purposes. This is a massive departure from the last century of psychological thought. The book argues that by clinging to the idea of trauma, we are essentially choosing to be victims so that we have an excuse for our current shortcomings. If you say, "I am this way because of what happened to me," you are using your past to justify your present choices. The philosopher insists that while the suffering of the past was real, its power over you today is something you are actively maintaining through your own choice.

This position has drawn heavy fire from critics who point out that it completely ignores the reality of neurobiology. Modern science shows that trauma isn't just a "story" we tell ourselves; it is a physical change in the brain and the nervous system. When a person experiences a severe threat, their autonomic nervous system can get stuck in a state of hyperarousal or shutdown. To tell someone in a state of involuntary biological collapse that they are "choosing" their depression to achieve a hidden goal isn't just unscientific—it can be profoundly unempathetic. Critics argue that Adlerian teleology creates a false equivalence between minor behavioral quirks, like procrastinating on a project to avoid criticism, and deep-seated neurological injuries. By labeling a biological injury as an "intentional choice," the book risks sliding into a form of victim-blaming that ignores how power structures and abuse actually function in the real world.

However, there is a way to bridge this gap if we look at how the brain actually learns. Some scientists suggest a "Bayesian" framework, where the brain is seen as a prediction machine. We interact with the world based on "prior expectations" formed by our past. Trauma "burns" very rigid expectations into our neural networks, telling us the world is unsafe. Recovery, then, isn't about denying the past (as the Adlerian might suggest) or dwelling on it forever (as the Freudian might). Instead, it’s about "updating your priors"—systematically exposing yourself to new, safe experiences so your brain can learn that the environment has changed. While the book’s total denial of trauma might be an oversimplification, its core message—that you are not your history and that you have the agency to move forward—remains a powerful, if controversial, call to action. The value of the Adlerian view is its refusal to let the past have the final word, even if its explanation for how we get stuck is scientifically incomplete.

One of the most subtle ways we make ourselves miserable is by viewing the world as a giant competition. In a competitive mindset, every person you meet is a potential rival or an enemy. If someone else succeeds, it feels like your loss. Even if you are winning, you can never truly be at peace because you are constantly worried about being overtaken. Adlerian psychology proposes a different way of seeing others: as comrades. When you view others as comrades, the world stops feeling like a battlefield and starts feeling like a community. This shift is essential for "community feeling," which Adler argues is the foundation of genuine happiness. Happiness, in this view, is the feeling of being useful to others—the sense that you are contributing to a whole that is larger than yourself.

To achieve this community feeling, the book outlines three necessary steps: self-acceptance, confidence in others, and contribution to others. First, self-acceptance is different from self-affirmation. You don't lie to yourself and say "I can do anything" when you can't. Instead, you accept your limitations as they are, but focus on what you can change. Second, "confidence in others" means believing in people unconditionally, without requiring proof or guarantees. This is terrifying because people might take advantage of you. But the book argues that if you live in doubt, you can never build deep relationships. Whether someone betrays your trust is their task; your task is simply whether or not you choose to have confidence in them. Finally, when you accept yourself and have confidence in others, you can truly contribute. And it is this subjective sense of being useful—even if no one notices or praises you—that provides a lasting sense of worth.

The beauty of this model is that it moves away from "vertical" relationships—where people are ranked as superior or inferior—and toward "horizontal" relationships, where people are equal but different. In a vertical relationship, you either praise someone (judging them from above) or rebuke them (judging them from above). Both are forms of manipulation. In a horizontal relationship, you express gratitude instead of praise. You don't say "You did a good job," which implies you are the judge of their worth. You say "Thank you for your help," which acknowledges their contribution as an equal. This might seem like a small linguistic tweak, but it fundamentally changes the power dynamics of your life. It allows you to stop seeking external validation and start finding internal satisfaction through the simple act of being of use to your community.

Many of us are driven by a desperate need to be "special." We think that if we aren't at the top of our field, or if we don't have some extraordinary talent, then our lives are meaningless. Adlerian psychology calls this the "pursuit of easy superiority". When people can't become special through being exceptionally good, they sometimes try to become special by being exceptionally bad or by "bragging about their misfortune" to control others with their weakness. The antidote to this is what the book calls "the courage to be normal". Being normal isn't a failure; it’s an acceptance that you don't need to be superior to others to have value. True superiority isn't about being better than someone else; it’s about comparing yourself to your ideal self, rather than to others.

This leads to a profound shift in how we view time. We often think of life as a mountain climb, where the goal is to reach the summit. If you spend your whole life trying to get to the top and you never make it, was your life a failure? The philosopher argues that life is not a linear story or a mountain climb; it is a "series of dots" or a dance. When you dance, the point isn't to get to a specific spot on the floor; the point is the dancing itself. If you focus entirely on the "now," the past and the future fade away, much like how a bright spotlight on a stage prevents you from seeing the audience. When you live intensely in the present moment, the "how" of your life becomes the "what." You don't need a grand narrative or a destination to justify your existence.

This "dance" of life is what allows you to assign your own meaning to the world. The philosopher is clear: life in general has no inherent meaning, but you have the power to assign meaning to your own life through your choices and your contributions to others. By letting go of the need for a "well-planned" life or a "successful" story, you free yourself to actually live. You can set goals, but you don't tie your happiness to their completion. Instead, you find happiness in the process of moving toward them. This is the ultimate form of agency: the recognition that your life is being created by you, right now, in this very moment, and that no matter what happened yesterday, the future is a blank page.

Even if you embrace these ideas, you will still encounter people who try to drag you back into the old ways of being. One of the most common traps is the "power struggle". If someone insults you or tries to provoke you, they are often challenging you to a struggle for dominance. If you get angry and fight back, you've already lost, because you've accepted their vertical framework where one person must be "right" and the other "wrong". Even if you win the argument, the other person will likely seek revenge later, leading to a never-ending cycle of retaliation. The Adlerian solution is to refuse the invitation to the struggle entirely. You communicate calmly, focus on the logic of the situation, and remember that their anger is their task, not yours. Admitting you are wrong or stepping away isn't a sign of weakness; it’s a sign that you have the courage to value the relationship over the need to be "superior".

You also have to be vigilant about your own "life-lies." We often use other people as excuses to avoid our own life tasks. For instance, you might say, "I can't follow my dreams because my spouse wouldn't support me." But this is often a way of avoiding the risk of failure. By blaming your spouse, you protect yourself from finding out if you actually have the talent to succeed. Adlerian psychology insists that you are the only one who determines your lifestyle, and you cannot shift that responsibility onto anyone else. Even when you are following a boss's orders and things go wrong, telling yourself "I was just following orders" is a life-lie. You chose to follow those orders to avoid the conflict of refusing them. Recognizing this is painful, but it is the only path to true self-reliance.

The book also warns against the trap of "harmony of life"—or rather, the lack of it. People who lack harmony of life tend to see only one small part of the world and judge the whole based on it. If one person out of ten dislikes you, you might focus entirely on that one person and decide that the whole world is a hostile place. You ignore the two people who accept everything about you and become close friends, and the other seven who are somewhere in between. By "zooming out" to a larger community—humanity, the planet, the universe—you can see your problems in their proper perspective. If a small community like your school or your office feels oppressive, remember that you belong to many other, larger communities where you are an equal. This ability to shift perspective is what gives you the strength to stand up to authoritarianism and to maintain your integrity even in difficult environments.

So, how do you actually start living this? It begins with a ruthless audit of your daily stresses. The next time you feel overwhelmed, stop and ask yourself: "Whose task is this?". If you are worried about a presentation, your task is to prepare and deliver it well. Whether the audience thinks it's brilliant or boring is their task. If you are worried about a friend's life choices, you can offer help, but their actual decision-making is their task. By mentally "returning" tasks that don't belong to you, you clear a massive amount of psychological space. You'll find that you have much more energy to focus on the things you actually control.

Next, try to catch yourself in the act of using "because" as a shield. Whenever you say "I can't do X because of Y," pause and ask the teleological question: "What goal am I serving by not doing X?". If the goal is to avoid the possibility of being hurt or failing, acknowledge that. You don't have to change everything overnight, but simply seeing the purpose behind your behavior strips it of its power. You are no longer a victim of a mysterious "cause"; you are a conscious actor who is choosing safety over growth. Once you see the choice, you can eventually choose differently.

Finally, practice "horizontal" communication. Instead of praising people—which creates a hierarchy—start expressing genuine gratitude and respect. When a colleague does a good job, don't say "Great work," as if you're their judge; say "That really helped me out, thank you." This builds a sense of comradeship and helps you move away from the competitive mindset that fuels so much of our unhappiness. Remember that your worth comes from the fact that you are part of a community and that you contribute to it, even if that contribution is just "being". A person who is sick or elderly and can't "do" anything still contributes by giving their family a sense of purpose and connection simply by being alive. you find happiness and have a true sense of your own worth when you feel beneficial to the community, and you find happiness by being of use to the people around you.

We’ve covered a lot of ground—from the radical idea that your past doesn't determine you, to the liberating practice of the separation of tasks, and the controversial debate over the nature of trauma. "The Courage to Be Disliked" is not a book that asks you to be more "positive" or to work harder; it is a book that asks you to be more courageous. It challenges the very foundation of how most of us understand our own minds. Whether you find Adler’s ideas to be a breath of fresh air or a bit too harsh, they force you to confront the one thing we all try to avoid: our own agency. It is much easier to be a victim of circumstances than to be the architect of a life that people might dislike.

Take a moment to reflect on where you might be holding onto a "story" about your past that is keeping you from moving toward a goal you actually want. Consider the possibility that the world really is simple, and that the complications you see are just walls you’ve built to stay safe. You don't need anyone's permission to be happy, and you don't need anyone's approval to be yourself. True freedom isn't found in a life without conflict; it’s found in the courage to walk your own path, even when the wind is blowing against you. Thank you for spending this time exploring these ideas with me. I hope you find the courage to be disliked, because on the other side of that fear is a life that is truly, finally, your own.