Between The Words - The Courage to be Disliked

[00:00:19] So, I read this book that was recommended to me called The Courage to be Disliked. And I'm going to butcher the author's name so apologies in advance. It was written by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishima. And in their book, one sentence really stood out to me. And I don't know how I feel about it.

[00:00:42] That sentence is, The world is simple and life is too. In short, it is a book that tells us all our problems are interpersonal relationship issues and takes an Adlerian approach to life and being happy and whole.

[00:01:00] Now, Alfred Adler was a psychologist who believed that although life has its challenges and may seem complex, it can be made simple by focusing on our goals and tasks. Tasks being things like responsibilities within our control, actions, knowing what we can and cannot change versus being swayed or making decisions based on what others may think or say about us. And goals are driven by a perceived future state of significance.

[00:01:31] World is simple phrase just means we perceive the world and life subjectively through a lens based on the meaning we give to our experiences and that we can change that perspective to view the world and life as simple. It's a lot, I know. Now, the book doesn't specifically go into grief or loss, but grief was written about.

[00:01:56] And it implied that the ideas here are equally attributable with the central idea being that we all have the power to change our circumstances slash lives and find happiness, regardless of our past experiences. That any unhappiness we have is self-imposed and fulfills a future goal we have set. Pausing to let that sink in.

[00:02:21] Any unhappiness we have is self-imposed and fulfills a goal we have set. Okay. Well, I think I can get behind that in theory for some situations. And although I did get really angry at first, like, I kept thinking, I'm grieving and sad over the murder of my children.

[00:02:50] Yet I am self-imposing these feelings. And how on earth do I change those circumstances? Can I make a wish and poof, my kids magically come back to life? Yeah, I was pretty upset. I made quite the scene in my little reading room, which is my closet, by the way. It's just a big closet, not even a walk in through a chair in there. It's my space. I get quiet. My reading room. But it caused me to take a step back.

[00:03:18] And I asked myself, why am I so angry with this statement? And the answer was because I had no control over what happened to my children in 2021. But maybe I can take back the control it has over my life, because it does concurrently control my life. After my children had been murdered, I began digging deeply into the questions I think we all have. Like, what is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Is there a God?

[00:03:48] What really happens when we die? And so on. Now I've had these questions for many years, long before the loss of my mom and kids. But when they all died in 2021, these questions quickly became my obsession. Death showed up and my focus changed. Which in turn began dictating my future. According to the book, I created a new goal with tasks to follow.

[00:04:15] I started sharing my thoughts about, you know, the life questions, my feelings I had with some friends and a therapist. I had decided I was a determinist, that free will did not exist. There is no God. And that when we die, we are simply evolved energy. We aren't going to meet up with our loved ones in any heaven. Rather, as someone suggested, we, meaning our energy, may just simply fold back into the universe.

[00:04:44] Our energy might recognize other energies from our lifetime or lifetimes, depending on what you believe. But it is not how religion portrays it. At least not for me. And in the course of my, what is life discussions, this book was suggested. It doesn't align with my beliefs at all. But I suspected that was the point.

[00:05:10] I actually quite enjoyed the book, even though I don't buy into most of it. And I liked it because the views described pushed me to think outside my box. To get uncomfortable and focus on my present. And work at not letting my losses control my future. It didn't change my mind around my currently held beliefs. But it did shine a light on where I'm missing out. Being so consumed with grief and my obsessive existential crisis.

[00:05:37] Caused me to make certain decisions based on them that, frankly, didn't bring me any peace or happiness. What the book helped me to do was accept and be okay with the sense of freedom that accompanied my current worldview. As I mentioned earlier, tasks, according to the authors, are things we have control of, i.e. our thoughts, feelings, etc. And they encourage the reader to separate tasks.

[00:06:05] Meaning, I need to distinguish what is within my control, like thoughts, feelings, actions, and what is not. Like the actions, thoughts, and feelings of others. And goals are our perceptions of who we are self-realized, whether it's conscious or not. Which in turn rule the decisions we make so that we meet these goals. So for example, real simple example.

[00:06:30] If I believe I cannot grow flowers because my attempt at a garden many years ago was disastrous. And people laughed at me and someone said that I didn't have the family green thumb. And then I spend the following years staying away from planting, surrounding myself with others who do not plant flowers. And who reinforce this belief of mine, even though deep down I wish I could be a master gardener like the rest of my family. I am meeting my goal.

[00:06:57] And my goal, quote unquote, as it were, is that I can't plant flowers or garden. And the tasks that I take on to keep that goal in my life is just as I described. So, according to this concept, my feelings of profound sadness and the loss of my mom and children are self-imposed. Thus, my goal is to always be sad. And my tasks to support said goal must be reliving the past.

[00:07:27] Or something else I don't know or haven't figured out yet. This is one of the views I do not buy into when it comes to death and grieving. I also don't buy into it regarding trauma. We know that death, grief, and trauma so profoundly change us that it also changes us biologically. And honestly, the memories are all I have left of them now. Memories cause me to be sad sometimes, but I don't want to change that.

[00:07:54] It's where I meet them and spend time with them. However, I can change how my life moves forward. I can make a goal of being happy in the present despite my past experience. I can't answer, nor can anyone, what really happens when we die. No one can truly say if there is a God, although many, if not most religions claim faith is the answer. And no one knows if we will meet up with our loved ones in the afterlife.

[00:08:21] So why am I trying to find answers where none are to be had versus living in my present and allowing myself to be grateful for what I do have? And I don't mean material things. I can be both sad, self-imposed or not, and at peace. What's my goal in having answers to unanswerable questions? I honestly have no clue, nor do I plan to spend more time trying to figure it out. I've accepted I won't know, and I am free from the angst not knowing what's caused.

[00:08:51] That's what this book gave me. Loss often leads to feeling isolated, alone. And if one is so deep into their grief and sadness, feeling hopeless, just the act of getting out of bed is a feat. And making new goals may seem impossible. And it is for some. It's very easy to say, embrace your discomfort, accept what you cannot control, see this as a challenge, etc. When in reality, we are complex creatures.

[00:09:22] Acceptance change new goals. They're not as simple as this book makes them out to be. The world may very well be simple. Life too. But people aren't. So yeah, I don't know how I feel about goals and tasks or the world is simple and life is too statement. But I can appreciate what I learned about myself while reading a book that challenged my boundaries.