The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness

Ichiro Kishimi, Fumitake Koga

Summary

The book is told as a conversation between a philosopher and a young, unhappy man. It's meant to convey Adlerian (as opposed to Freudian) psychology in a relatively reachable format. Adler was an opposing contemporary of Freud/Jeung's whose work was not as popularized at the time but is resurfacing eg. via this book from the Japanese authors. By reframing a lot of the young man's issues in Adlerian context, the young man's way of thinking (which is basically the Freudian psychology) is challenged. Over the course of five "nights" the philospher teaches the core principles in Adlerian psychology.

Lesson 1: Your past does not determine your future

One of the key points in Freudian psychology is "trauma". This idea basically means we are who we are because of things that happened to us in the past. Adler rejects this idea and instead posit it that in essence we can change at any moment if we have the courage and usually any issues we have are because we want to have them for some indirect reason. If someone thinks, “I can’t __ because I was abused by my parents”, it’s because it is their goal to think that way.

Lesson 2: All problems are interpersonal relationship problems

To get rid of your problems, all you can do is live in the universe all alone. But you can’t do that. We are all suffering in interpersonal relationships. There are two objectives for ideal behavior: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society.

• When one can think, “Whenever I am with this person, I can behave very freely”, one can really feel love.

Lesson 3: Discard other people's tasks. Deny the desire for recognition

• All interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other people’s tasks, or having your own tasks intruded upon.
• To tell whose task it is, ask, “Who ultimately is going to receive the result brought about by the choice that is made?”
• Intervening in other people’s tasks is essentially egocentric.
• Forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance.
• Like you can't read a book if you push it up against your face, nor hold it too far away.

Lesson 4: Where the center of the world is. Individual psychology and holism

• No matter what sort of appeal the other person might make, you are the only one who decides what you should do.
• Freedom is being disliked by other people.
• It is proof that you are exercising your freedom and living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in accordance with your own principles.
• Conducting yourself in such a way as to not be disliked by anyone is an extremely unfree way of living.

Lesson 5: To live in earnest in the here and now

Happiness is the feeling of contribution.

• No matter what moments you are living, or if there are people who dislike you, as long as you do not lose sight of the guiding star of “I contribute to others,” you will not lose your way, and you can do whatever you like.
• Not self-affirmation, self acceptance
• Say you’ve got a score of 60 percent, but you tell yourself, “I just happened to get unlucky this time around, and the real me is 100 percent.” That is self-affirmation.
• By contrast, if you accept yourself as you are, as 60 percent, and think to yourself, “How should I go about getting closer to 100 percent?” - that is self-acceptance.

Quotes

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference. "

Kurt Vonnegut

My thoughts

It was interesting to see the parallels and fallacies in Freudian psychology. For example, in Freudian psychology you'd blame some imperfection on a trauma that happened and in essence you are stuck with you're stuck with who being this way due to this trauma. In Adlerian psychology, the argument is made in essence that you are imperfect in some way because you want to be because you don't have the courage to change. It's a much more positive light than Freud's idea that we're all just trying to fix prior incidents.