“Think of life as a series of dots” - Alfred Adler

I read “The Courage to Be Disliked” in mid-2024, and it has quickly become one of the books I most often recommend, alongside Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Both books and their underlying questions and human sense-making journeys are worth remembering, reflecting on and returning to, especially when feeling nihilistic, lacking purpose, or struggling with self-doubt.

Written by Japanese philosopher and psychologist Ichiro Kishimi (岸見 一郎) and Fumitake Koga, the book format is a dialogue between a youth and an older philosopher and offers fresh take on psychology compared to more well-known Freud or Jung. Through a series of illustrative exchanges, the book’s characters examine many of Adler’s key concepts as well as laying out a philosophy of self-acceptance, courage to lead one’s own life and an ethical orientation based on contributing to others. One might even argue it fits in well with Charles Taylor’s Ethics of Authenticity.

While its final messages are simple ones like “living earnestly here and now” and having the “courage to change what we can change,” Adler does not want us to simply accept these ideas without critical inquiry or self-examination. In fact, he is quite skeptical of advice-giving as such and instead encourages each of us to attempt to work through these challenging ideas from our own point of view and personal experience and to strive to incorporate the key lessons authentically and fully.

Overall, the core ideas from Adler and this book highly resonated with me, and I quite enjoyed the way the ideas were told and unfolded. The book’s socratic dialogue format fits well with seeing ideas from multiple perspectives and forced me as a reader to struggle with hard concepts on my own terms. In spite of sparse references to their actual names, I found that the usage of Greek philosophy (namely Socrates, Plato and Aristotle) along with German Philosophy (Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger) provided a robust intellectual foundation too.

Here are my book notes and a few of my takeaways and lessons.

My Quick Take Book Review

• ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I rated this book a 5 out of 5 on Goodreads.
• Would I recommend it? Definitely, I’d recommend this book to anyone struggling to navigate life’s ambiguities and challenges.
• Would I read it again? Totally. Along with “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor E Frankl, I think this book and its underlying philosophy are worth remembering and returning to. I tend to periodically lose my sense of meaning (like everyone) and get a bit nihilistic and depressed. Recognizing our own ability to change and reminding myself that I am able to create my own self-determining meaning are key enablers during periods of self-doubt and sadness.

Background: Who was Alfred Adler?

“Understanding a human being is no easy matter. Of all the forms of psychology, individual psychology is probably the most difficult to learn and put into practice.” - Alfred Adler

Alfred Adler (7 February 1870 – 28 May 1937) was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and contemporary of Freud and Jung. Adler broke away to found Individual Psychology, and he emphasized a consideration of the human being as an individual whole, the importance of feelings of belonging, relationships within the family, and birth order, which set him apart from both Freud and Jung. While less famous than Freud, Adler’s ideas have influenced everything from modern therapy to self-help, especially around social interest, inferiority feelings, and the courage to change.

What I Got Out of This Book

“Life in general has no meaning…Whatever meaning life has must be assigned to it by the individual.” - Alfred Adler

The book is told over several chapters that span several nights. Multiple ideas resonated with me in this book, and I suspect I’d glean different lessons upon re-reading or further reflection.

Here are the ones I gathered during my first book reading:

“All Problems Are Interpersonal Relationship Problems”

Do I derive my self-worth from external validation?

Psychologist Alfred Adler makes a rather bold claim that “all problems are interpersonal relationship problems.” He is reframing the challenges we face in life as fundamentally relational.

Rejecting the ego-driven framework from Freud and the more individualistic claims of existentialists like Sartre, Adler insists that we cannot understand the self atomistically. Our sense of who we are is fundamentally relational — shaped not by internal drives alone but by our social connections and sense of belonging. Loneliness, for instance, isn’t just about physical isolation but a feeling of exclusion even when surrounded by people. To quote: ”Loneliness is having other people and society and community around you, and having a deep sense of being excluded from them.”

This sense of disconnection often stems from internal struggles, like self-dislike or fear of rejection, which can push us to withdraw or avoid meaningful relationships altogether. Adler’s insight encourages us to confront these internal barriers to better navigate the external world. As the title of the book aptly puts it, a courage to be disliked, an idea we will look at more directly below.

Interpersonal problems also emerge in how people use relationships to express or cope with their own vulnerabilities. Some individuals declare their misfortune or suffering as a way to garner attention, restrict others’ behavior, or control their environment. Adler draws a striking analogy: ”If we were to ask ourselves who is the strongest person in our culture, the logical answer would be, the baby. The baby rules and cannot be dominated.” The baby rules through weakness, and it’s precisely this weakness that gives it power. The comparison underscores how vulnerability, when unacknowledged or misused, can create imbalances in relationships. The challenge lies in transforming these dynamics into mutual support and equality.

Ultimately, Adler’s framework invites us to view our relational challenges as opportunities for self-awareness and growth. By addressing interpersonal struggles—whether they stem from internal fears, unbalanced dynamics, or unmet needs—we can cultivate healthier, more fulfilling connections. It also challenges us to recognize the role of contribution and belonging in overcoming relational problems. When we shift from seeking control or validation toward contributing to others and embracing mutual respect, we begin to resolve the root of these problems. This perspective aligns with the broader Adlerian principles of self-reliance, community harmony, and courage in relationships.

“Whose task is this?”

How do you deal with the reality that much of what causes us anguish comes from tackling other people’s tasks?

Adler’s principle of task separation offers a test: ”Who ultimately is going to receive the result brought about by the choice that is made?” To simplify this: Who bears the consequences of this choice?

If the consequence falls on someone else, it’s their task — not yours. What another person thinks of you, whether they like or dislike you, that is their task, not yours.

This clarity can be liberating. It frees us from the exhausting need for external validation and lets us focus on what is actually within our control. As Adler puts it: ”All interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other people’s tasks, or having one’s own tasks intruded on.”

As a solo founder, I’ve had to learn this the hard way: I can build the best tool I can, but whether someone chooses to use it is their task, not mine. My belief that something is great or needed doesn’t change the reality that a person or market must choose it on their own, not because I think or want them to. The same dynamic plays out in relationships. I should be empathetic and supportive, but ultimately I can’t lead someone else’s life, make their choices or even do the actual work of navigating someone else’s feelings and struggles. The best I can do is suggest ways to reframe and alternative paths, since these tasks are theirs, not mine.

Asking “Whose task is this?” serves as a grounding question, helping us honor the balance between support and interference. It reminds us to respect the autonomy of others as well as our own. By focusing only on what is within our control, we can avoid the frustration that comes from trying to change what isn’t ours to change.

Put another way, Adlerian psychology is a psychology for changing oneself, not a psychology for changing others.

The Courage to Be Disliked

“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.” (p116)

Adlerian psychology denies the need to seek recognition from others. By separating our tasks from those of others, we can take on the individual task of change. This is a profound existential turn: change is not the task of our therapist, educator, or even parents. It is the task of each of us as individuals.

“For a human being, the greatest unhappiness is not being able to like oneself.” The youth in the book struggles with this — his own sadness, his own evolving identity. He keeps seeking answers from the philosopher, who refuses to simply give them. There is no “just be happy” or “stay positive” way of framing our life’s journey. Without a journey of self-acceptance and personal sense-making, someone else’s answer wouldn’t really be yours — and it wouldn’t be free either.

The book’s sharpest formulation: “Freedom is being disliked by other people.” (p114) You can’t avoid the vulnerability of an uncertain self — that is a journey each of us must go on to actually be ourselves. One does not live as if rolling downhill, but instead climbs the slope that lies ahead. One moves forward without fearing the possibility of being disliked. That is freedom for a human being.

Contribution to Others

“If one really has a feeling of contribution, one will no longer have any need for recognition from others. Because one will already have the real awareness that ‘I am of use to someone,’ without needing to go out of one’s way to be acknowledged by others.” (p183)

What if happiness isn’t about achievement but about feeling useful? What if we can find meaning and purpose without needing to be recognized for it?

Rejecting meaning and purpose as purely egoistical or selfish, a chief limitation to Sartre’s existential ethics, Adler argues that the good life and the happy life are about contributing to others. Everything isn’t just about self-interests, because we are social beings who live in a social context and have social interests.

The tension of all of this is encapsulated in a somewhat counterintuitive but profound line:

“Contribution to others, rather than being about getting rid of the ‘I’ and being of service to someone, is actually something one does in order to be truly aware of the worth of the ‘I’.” (p170)

Contributing to others isn’t selfless nor is it the sublimation of self for other. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Adler’s individual psychology challenges us to pursue this journey of self-discovery and arguably self-creation so as to become aware of our own self worth and, in turn, contribute.

According to Adler, “In a word, happiness is the feeling of contribution.” For him, the essence of work goes beyond the job at a company, for clients or even getting paid; instead it confirms one’s sense of belonging and includes child-rearing, domestic/house work, hobbies, and contributing to local society. This idea of living beyond paid work or a core artistic identity seems really important, because it offers a more holistic way of living where “horizontal” doing and relationships meaningfully matter and contributions create purpose.

As a software engineer, tool builder, musician and artist, Adler’s framing of “work as contribution” offers me a path out from the issues I often encounter with certain self-help principles, psychological frameworks like Freud’s, and especially existential philosophy, namely their inability to offer a meaningful universe beyond the self, a solution to solipsistic absolutism, or even just a world beyond my head with and for others.

Contribution to and for others matters deeply to me. It’s something I enact through my open source code work and through reflection and goal pursuit tech products, like Stay Reflective and Playback Pilot. While blogging and making music give me flow and are important paths for learning and growth, they also help me recognize a certain form of self-worth through useful doings and lived contributions. In a world where meaning and ultimate purpose are in my opinion impossible to find, I instead ask myself a simpler question: Is what I am doing useful?

If I had to summarize the arc of the book and Adler’s thinking therein, it is realizing and recognizing our freedom from the need for approval and accepting and embracing the courage to be disliked. This, in turn, allows us to lean in and live our deeply human capacity to contribute freely and, by extension, to be happy.

Book Notes, Quotes and Key Takeaways

[Emphasis is mine]

• Subjectivity and Reality: “None of us live in an objective world, but instead in a subjective world that we ourselves have given meaning to. The world you see is different from the one I see, and it’s impossible to share your world with anyone else.”
• Meaning-Making and Personal Agency: Our self is ”determined not by our experiences themselves, but by the meaning we give them. We determine our own lives according to the meaning we give to those past experiences.”
• Adler: “No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on.” Put bluntly, people can change.
• All Problems Are Interpersonal Relationship Problems: Adler says, “To get rid of one’s problems, all one can do is live in the universe all alone.” Unfortunately, we can’t do such a thing. We must recognize our need to live in a world with others and find the courage to accept who we are or wish to be, even if it entails being disliked by some.
• Self-Dislike as Avoidance: “You’ve avoided interpersonal relationships by disliking yourself.” (p46)
• We don’t owe others our lives: “We are not living to satisfy other people’s expectations.” (p93)
• The paradox of self-consciousness: “A way of living in which one is constantly troubled by how one is seen by others is a self-centered lifestyle in which one’s sole concern is with the ‘I’.” (p129)
• Distance in relationships: “Forming good interpersonal relationships requires a certain degree of distance.” (p123)
• You are the only one who can assign meaning to your life.
• Lifestyle as a Choice: “People are constantly selecting their lifestyles…It is because you are making the persistent decision not to change your lifestyle…But if you change your lifestyle—the way of giving meaning to the world and yourself—then both your way of interacting with the world and your behavior will have to change as well.” (p33) - MK: This idea of Adlerian teleology is profound and something I circle around regularly. I recently was reflecting on the need to park Stay Reflective for Playback Pilot which I put in my own words as: “sometimes you have to let go of things that aren’t working and pursue things that are.”
• Courage to Respect Your Self-Worth: In Adler’s view, “It is only when a person is able to feel that he has worth that he can possess courage.”
• We are limited but can have an impact with what we have: Adler says, “The important thing is not what one is born with but what use one makes of that equipment.”
• Two objectives of behavior: Adler: “The two objectives for behavior: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. The two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors: the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.”
• A blank page: “The life that lies ahead of you is a completely blank page, and there are no tracks that have been laid for you to follow.” (p196)
• The guiding star: “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. Whether you’re disliked or not, you pay it no mind and live free.” (p201)
• I can change. If I can change, the world can change. “If ‘I’ change, the world will change. This means that the world can be changed only by me and no one else will change it for me.”
• Self-Determining Beings: Adler states, “No experience is in itself a cause of our success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences—the so-called trauma—but instead, we make out of them whatever suits our purposes. We are not determined by our experiences, but the meaning we give them is self-determining.”

Concluding Thoughts: Living Earnestly in the Here and Now

The arc of the book is deceptively simple: freedom from the need for approval, the courage to be disliked, and through that, the capacity to contribute freely and be happy. But Adler doesn’t stop there and pushes forward asking: when and how we live this way?

While we as humans have a tendency to look for causes for who we are in the past and dream about some “end” state in the future, the truth is we start each day and each moment anew. All we have is now. All we can do is get started.

Adler rejects viewing life as a line and argues that life is just a “series of moments” or “a series of dots.” This here-and-now orientation isn’t selfish egoism but instead centered on cultivating self-acceptance. It’s about finding a “self-centered” capacity to feel one has worth. Strikingly this isn’t just worth in our acts but on the level of our being.

“The greatest life-lie of all is to not live here and now.”

This formulation of living for yourself in the now combined with a social context and ethical ideal towards contributing to others aligns well with ideas found in one of my favorite philosophers, Charles Taylor, and his book Ethics of Authenticity. Authenticity, in Taylor’s view, isn’t a purely ego or self quest but carries a social responsibility and ethical dimension. Basically, we are always in a lived world, a subjective experience of a self in a caring and intersubjective society. Authenticity isn’t about just finding yourself but about finding what is significant in your difference from others. As Taylor puts it: “I can define my identity only against the background of things that matter.” You can’t have a self without the other, and to live as if others don’t matter is ethically and meaningfully void.

But is there even a self to find? In The Mind Is Flat, another favorite book of mine, Nick Chater rejects the very notion of hidden inner depth. He argues that the self is an illusion and fabrication of our mind, an often fluid, fragmented and evolving one that should be to some extent mistrusted. In this context, one could argue that Adler’s concept of life as “series of dots” lands even harder because there is no deep self to discover. We are only the self we live day to day.

Alongside Frankl, “The Courage to Be Disliked” and its underlying concepts and quotes are ideas I often return to, especially in a world of change, depressing news and uncertainty for me and my work. Life can feel hard. The universe can feel cold and meaningless. As one of the characters in the book fittingly puts it:

“Someone has to start. Other people might not be cooperative, but that is not connected to you. My advice is this: You should start. With no regard to whether others are cooperative or not.” (p203)

When I feel stuck or nihilistic, Adler’s ideas give me a reliable and non-self-deluding form of sense-making as I grow, change, self-doubt, deal with changes, cultivate resilience, and move forward each day. Yet, Adler’s core concepts of personal responsibility, rejecting external validation, seeking self-worth without needing approval, living life in the now and contributing to others continue to resonate and offer me realistic and lived hope.

Along with the importance of starting, the quote we started with of life as a “series of dots” gets extended later in the book in a beautiful kinetic metaphor of dancing and is worth quoting in full:

Think of it this way: Life is a series of moments, which one lives as if one were dancing, right now, around and around each passing instant. With dance, it is the dancing itself that is the goal, and no one is concerned with arriving somewhere by doing it. The kind of life that you speak of, which tries to reach a destination, may be termed a “kinetic (dynamic) life.” By contrast, the kind of dancing life I am talking about could be called an “energeial (actual-active-state) life.” (p 192)

Life is a dance. The dancing itself is the goal. Start dancing.

References:

Kishimi, I., Koga, F. (2018). The Courage To Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness. United Kingdom: Allen & Unwin.

AIDA (AI Disclosure Acknowledgement): This blog post was researched and written by the author. AI tools (Claude Code) were used to assist with research, editing, structural organization and clarity.