Category: Writing A Book-ish

Make Up Your Own Mind

I wrote something exactly like the excerpt below lately. Being an adult means thinking for yourself. And acting on what you actually think. Not what wins you a popularity prize.

So I was pleased to stumble across this quote from Erich Fromm that validates my point of view.

We are all saturated in the cultural and familial ambitions we were raised in. For many, life becomes a series of dutifully and somewhat mindlessly following in someone else’s footsteps. Either by choice or by gentle – and not so gentle – coercion. “My son, the doctor!!”

It is one of life’s great ironies that we accept as real that which we learn from our environment. And more, we come to believe that we are making choices and decisions on our own. While we are conforming to beat the band.

“We”, in effect, become “they.” We believe what “they’ believe. We do – in the main – what “they” do. We think what “they” think. Or close enough to it to keep our membership viable at any one of a number of social settings.

I always had trouble with this way of thinking personally. I think a lot of current North American values simply suck. Inequities always jumped out at me. The stacked deck that shapes the lives of the rich and the not so rich.

The easy intercourse of hatred between different groups. The worship of money and raising its value above all else. Even, and especially, above human dignity and integrity.

Nikki Haley famously quoted Margaret Thatcher on the occasion of her withdrawal from the 2024 US Presidential race: “Never just follow the crowd. Always make up your own mind.” 

That’s a tall order these days as pressure to conform and consequences for not doing so are predominant.

Still, it is important to remind ourselves of our individual power and our own ability to work through a problem or issue and come up with our own conclusion.

So sayeth Erich Fromm. And fittingly on International Women’s day today, so does former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Thatcher wasn’t known for mincing her words or pulling punches. A great female role model for our time.

Most people are convinced that as long as they are not overtly forced to do something by an outside power, their decisions are theirs, and that if they want something, it is they who want it.

But this is one of the great illusions we have about ourselves.

A great number of our decisions are not really our own but are suggested to us from the outside.

We have succeeded in persuading ourselves that it is we who have made the decision, whereas we have actually conformed with expectations of others, driven by the fear of isolation and by more direct threats to our life, freedom, and comfort.

Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom [ad] https://amzn.to/438Pn3g

Happy International Women’s Day!

The Universe

Funny isn’t it, how concepts creep into our parlance?

“Gifts from the Universe,” is one.

I get the theory of energetic interconnectivity between all living things.

I get the theory that our planet is just one heaving, breathing, undulating organism trying to stay in balance like the rest of us who are temporarily parked here.

Vague platitudes – if that is what they are – are comforting. Or can be. Sort of.

“Everything happens for a reason.” “Nature leans towards balance and harmony.” “That was an unexpected gift from the Universe.” “We can do hard things.”

I have had more gifts from the Universe in my life than I can count. For that, I am grateful. And I feel so undeserving. Ergo, the gratitude.

With this post today, I am exactly one week away from the one year anniversary of starting this blog. That’s significant to me. A goal achieved. A target hit. Barring any unfortunate developments over the next seven days.

I have been wondering internally and on these pages, what’s next? I have committed to hanging up my computer keyboard for a while and taking a break. Airing out the brain cells, Maybe seeking out some new inspiration.

So when an email invitation arrived last night, I was as bemused as I was surprised. Peter Murphy, founder of the Murphy School of writing at Stockton University in New Jersey, was writing with a proposition.

“Would you consider coming to the annual weeklong Florida “Get Away to Write” workshop that starts on March 19th?” he wrote. There are still places available and he added a financial sweetener.

It was at the Get Away to Write workshop in New Smyrna Beach, Florida on March 14, 2023 that I started this blog writing exercise.

I like the implication of coming full circle by attending this year. It is almost as if I had been assigned a yearlong research project. Now I can attend again this year and report on what I learned from that exercise.

This time I will be able to take part in the memoir session. It was fully subscribed last year and I attended the retreat as an independent writer. Whether the memoir I set out to write when I signed up last year, or another memoir emerges, only time will tell.

If nothing else, the writing flame within me continues to be fanned. Which is how creativity works in my experience. Slow and steady regular effort prevails over intermittent flashes of brilliance and insight. Much like life.

There are good writing days and there are bad writing days.

So yes, I’ll go to this writing workshop if the stars align. Not sure what that means or what it would take. Surmounting entropy likely.

But my calendar that week is clear. Hubby says he’ll come with. As an end of blogging for one full year celebration, five days in a setting with other creative people at an arts retreat center set in a jungle in a charming Southern oceanside town may be just what the doctor ordered.

Or the Universe.

Immutable Truths

If I’ve learned one thing from writing this blog for almost a year now, is that there is a lot of life wisdom and guidance to be found in the world.

I hope I have imparted some of the wisdom I’ve picked up along the way. I hope I have internalized some of it.

Today’s social conceit of our entitled right and access to “almost everything” – if we but follow the program on offer or buy into this person’s philosophy – is essentially a crock. Ultimately, we have to figure out what works for us, the direction of mentors and charlatans notwithstanding.

Most simply put, there are immutable truths about life. We can ignore them but they won’t ignore us. Change your gender. Lie about your birth date. Concoct a fabulous and false story about your origins and lineage. See how far that gets you.

Because, in the end, it all comes down to getting right with ourselves. That’s a lifetime commitment for most folk right there.

We see and read so much about “ensuring the rights of” – name it. The gender confused. The victims of domestic violence. Blacks. Asians. The mentally ill. The homeless. Republicans.

The description of fighting for those rights always provides lively copy. Speaks to the great interest and inherent sense of light-seeking that I believe all humans wish for: justice, fairness, equity, truth.

What isn’t so common is the follow up. We rarely hear what oppressed person or group learn from their “liberation.” Who do they credit for their eventual success? When do they settle into a sense of peace with that they have achieved?

In the end, I believe any joint victory is felt as a personal victory. We are part of many groups and all carry our own inherent prejudices and biases. When a group we feel part of is victorious, we feel victorious.

That’s the reason I believe it is absolutely essential to get right with yourself and whatever you conceive god to be. No matter how solid and comforting and supporting all those groups have been in your life, at the end, we are all completely on our own.

It is not selfishness to focus on and sort out what really matters to us in this life. It is wisdom. Only from that vantage point can you share yourself with others in any meaningful way.

Pity the parrots who never completely come to understand who they are and why they believe what they believe. Those who never learn to think for themselves.

So, once again, I found wise words that spoke to me. I acknowledge wise words for their consistency and relevance over time.

There is no shortage of them. Our task – the biggest – is to sort through them and apply the wisest lessons to our own lives. In my case, it is an ongoing work in progress.

As is much great wisdom, the list of life lessons below is simple. Not easy to follow. But simple.

And as much life wisdom does, this list comes from our First Nations. They had centuries to figure out solid life lessons before “progress” irreversibly altered their way of life and brought us into the great age of “modernity.”

15 REMINDERS FROM THE ELDERS:

1. Get up with the sun to pray. Pray alone.

2. Be tolerant of those who have lost their way. Ignorance, presumption, anger, jealousy and greed come from a lost soul. Pray for them to find guidance.

3. Find yourself, by your own means. Do not let others make your path for you. It is your path, and only yours. Others may walk with you, but no one can make your way (or walk your path) for you.

4. Treat guests in your home with great consideration. Serve them the best food, give them the best bed and treat them with respect and honor.

5. Do not take what is not yours, whether from a person, a community, from the jungle or from a culture. It was not given or won. It is not yours.

6. Respect all the things that are on this earth, be they people, plants and animals.

7. Honor the thoughts, desires and words of all people. Never break them in, or make fun of them, or imitate them rudely. It gives each person the right to their personal expression.

8. Never talk about others in a bad way. The negative energy you put into the universe will multiply when it returns to you.

9. All people make mistakes. And all the mistakes can be forgiven.

10. Bad thoughts cause illness to the mind, body and spirit. Practice optimism.

11. Nature is not FOR us. It is PART of us. She’s part of your family in the world.

12. Children are the seeds of our future. Sow love in your hearts and water them with wisdom and life lessons. When they grow up, just give them space to grow up.

13. Avoid hurting the hearts of others. The poison of their suffering will return to you.

14. Be true (transparent ) all the time. Honesty is the test of one’s will in this universe.

15. Keep yourself balanced. Your Mental person, your Spiritual person, your Emotional person, and your Physical person: they all have the need to be strong, pure and healthy.

Evelyn D Springfield  ·   · 

Pinky Blinders

Today’s writing prompt: “You’re writing your autobiography. What’s your opening sentence?“

Mine is:

“For me, the Fifties will forever be symbolized by Jayne Mansfield and her pink, heart-shaped pool.”

That is an image I have long carried of the Fifties. Beautiful, buxom, platinum haired Jayne Mansfield hoisted in the arms of her weightlifter husband Mickey Hargitay at the edge of her Beverly Hills swimming pool.

What is it about that image that sticks with me? For me, it was everything that was wrong with the Fifties. The garish and overt sexualization of women’s bodies. The plasticity and pretentiousness of the bottle bleached blonde. The artifice. The illusion of endless summer.

As a child you don’t know what is real and what isn’t. You learn what the accepted reality is from the adults around you and what – according to them – is supposed to matter.

Children have no choice but to accept and mirror this version of reality and it becomes their own. Until it doesn’t. The choice of opting in or out that comes with adulthood.

Even as a child, I remember being appalled by the behavior of a lot of the adults around me. Especially at our frequent house parties. The adults drank too much. Many smoked – a stupid, filthy habit I eventually adopted for many years and then finally discarded.

They laughed too loud. There was a constant low level of tension and forced frisson at these parties. Adults trying really, really hard to have a good time.

The disconnect between what many of these people said and what they did was evident to me. Way too much flirting and laughter in corners between men and women who were married to other people in the room.

I have come to understand how traumatized that entire post World war Two generation must have been. Sure, the Allies had been victorious over the evil forces of Nazism. Sufficiently to declare victory, disband the active war effort and move everyone back into a semblance of normal living.

Turns out that was easier said than done. Women used to making their own money and living independently were forced back into the domestic arena to make room in the workforce for the returning menfolk.

Possibly worse as an expectation, these displaced women were supposed to be happy about it. Doing their bit for the boys and country and all that.

Little wonder that the likes of Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield became popular. They were part of the post-war myth that life was not only better after the war, but bigger and better than it had ever been. These women and all the pretenders were symbols of all the freedom and glory the war effort won them.

It was bound to buckle. No society can live disconnected from the dictates of reality indefinitely. Enter the Sixties and what soon seemed to be constant social upheaval on every front: civil rights, the anti-Vietnam War protests, the rise of feminism, Baby Boomers starting to come of age. New rulebooks being written.

I see myself and my life goals as having been marinated in the stew of the Fifties. As an adult, I still tote around my little bag of values from the influences of that early upbringing.

The Protestant work ethic. The focus on external symbols of success. An expectation of affluence. A certain generational narcissism about our “uniqueness” that came with being part of the largest cohort of babies born in one period in the history of the world.

Today Boomers are vilified by many. Our focus on accumulating wealth and security worked well for us as a generation. To the point it seems that we have unintentionally scanted the generations coming behind us.

How in the name of heaven did a simple single family dwelling get to be so ridiculously expensive? Everywhere. I’ve yet to find a logical economic explanation.

While my autobiography would open with a description of that superplastic vision of hyper-happy and beautiful young and rich people like Jayne and Mickey, it was evident that fantastical image and lifestyle was bound to be time-limited.

It was a pablum period. No grit in the corn meal. No starch in the shorts. Just fun and glitz and partying and happy. Always happy. Perpetual adolescence.

The generation that lived it up in the Fifties eventually came back to a place of reckoning in the decades that followed. More settled and mature. Yet some of the Fifties core values are worth hanging on to.

A fierce sense of justice and atonement emerged from the detritus of war. An inherent world-wide sense of the fragility of peace and human life. The focus on stability to ensure the healthy growth of the upcoming generation. Medical and technological advances galore.

For those of us shaped within the confines of that decade, many of the images endure and maybe some of the values, too. Our crowd is leaving the planet and will have left its mark on the world as every generation inevitably does.

I recently read there are now more millennials in Canada than there are “baby boomers.” The great cull has begun. Soon, the pluses and minuses scored by our generation will be consigned to the history books.

And when it is, I have a strong suggestion for the image that best represents us for the cover.

The Paradox

Every day, I seem to live the paradox poet Sarah Kay writes about.

Her insightful poem speaks to the fragmentation of attention and focus.

Let’s face it. There is never not a time when there is something else we could be doing.

I suffer regularly from this paradox. It can be attributed, in part, to unclear priorities. If you know exactly where you are heading and what you want to be doing, the paradox may not be as frequent or troubling.

But who among us has such clarity and certainty of purpose at every age and stage of their lives?

I think the paradox referenced here troubles everyone at some level and at some point. I’m not enamored thinking the only resolution might be on our deathbed, though that makes sense.

I’d like to find – and often enjoy – more periods of peace well before then. Those periods of peace seem to happen most reliably when I manage to get out of my head.

The Paradox

When I am inside writing,
all I can think about is how I should be outside living.

When I am outside living,
all I can do is notice all there is to write about.

When I read about love, I think I should be out loving.
When I love, I think I need to read more.

I am stumbling in pursuit of grace,
I hunt patience with a vengeance.

On the mornings when my brother’s tired muscles
held to the pillow, my father used to tell him,

For every moment you aren’t playing basketball,
someone else is on the court practicing.

I spend most of my time wondering
if I should be somewhere else.

So I have learned to shape the words thank you
with my first breath each morning, my last breath every night.

When the last breath comes, at least I will know I was thankful
for all the places I was so sure I was not supposed to be.

All those places I made it to,
all the loves I held, all the words I wrote.

And even if it is just for one moment,
I will be exactly where I am supposed to be.

Sarah Kay, https://www.lyrikline.org/en/poems/paradox-15406

Blinders Off

Stock taking begins.

I am not the great writer I hoped, and secretly believed, that I am.

It turns out that years of personal upheaval, creative subterfuge, dismissal and avoidance did take their toll.

I had plenty of “deep thoughts” about a lot of things to share when I was young. The childish arrogance is sweet, but laughable. But it came to a point I didn’t dare express them anyway.

I didn’t have the tools or necessary distance to start dissecting and unpacking the multi and various lapses of my childhood until I was well into adulthood.

I think a great writer – and I’m thinking of the great novelists here – can invite and bring you into their world. Any world they devise. Seemingly effortlessly. You are led around by the author as a steady companion might be.

They tell you their stories which tells you something about who they are. You overhear something from one particular conversation that stays with you. You meet people. And people got stories.

When I think of the great protagonists in novels I’ve enjoyed, I liked that the author helped me get to know their character’s character. Warts and all. Right off the bat.

There is something particularly compelling about a character being vulnerable that can advance a story dramatically.

The 24/7 superhero character can become an uninteresting drag. So even the best of them usually have some trauma or tragedy that has shaped their path and who they are.

For a time, I entertained the delusional notion that I might present myself to the world as that broken but not beaten female superhero. The one who could help others make sense out of an unstable and abusive childhood. I would show them how they could do it.

I can be downright amusing. I have carried this conceit of my writing prowess for years to offset the real life gravity that pulled my biggest desires and goals wildly off course. There was always going to be a “some day.” Until one day, there isn’t.

I am going to work on acceptance of my own limitations and the inevitable deflation of ego that propelled this little adventure over the past year. I do dearly wish that the place of peace and healthy self-confidence I have now, I would have had when I needed them most.

But I read few stories that read that way or actually go that way. Challenge and growth seem to be the mandatory edicts laid down for human beings in order to move forward in life.

Will a book suddenly come rushing out of me one day with all the words and stories I have been holding back for decades? I’m doubtful. Over thirty years, I’ve actively pursued therapy to talk out my issues and by writing endless journals to explore every aspect and screwup of my life. To date.

The same urgency is no longer there. Words padded and protected me most when I needed them to. They have been my tools, my playmates, my confidantes, and my critics for as long as I can remember.

Maybe one day I’ll get honest enough to throw off my tidy 3 minute writing restriction (a broadcasting hangover). Or shuck the internalized discipline of a professional writing career and tell you unedited what I really think and feel. But I actually do that already. But there’s always more.

Like how much I have come to resent my dead mother and her chronic overwhelm. How sorry and sad I feel for our fractured and flailing family. How much rage I carry over the “preventable tragedies” I watched unfold around me. And within my own life.

So that’s where I am at for now. I had no intention when I started out to monetize this blog. Still don’t. I could try some of the WordPress “marketing” tricks to reach a wider audience. In truth, I don’t know how many of you found me in the first place. Tags, maybe?

At the moment I am treading water. I’m trying to decide whether to swim out to deeper waters in the hope of finding a luxurious desert island to hang out on. Or whether I will be heading dutifully – and sensibly – back to shore.

Guess we’ll see.

Two. Weeks. Today.

March 13, 2024. The one year anniversary of starting this daily blog is just ahead. This is blog post Number 355.

Today I believe this is what I am going to do the day after I celebrate that anniversary.

I am going to take a rest and not post anything for a while. At the minute, I have no idea how long “awhile” might be.

I follow other bloggers who post only occasionally. No set schedule. Just when they feel like it or have something they really want to say. I enjoy reading what they write when their blog posts pop up in my email.

Maybe I will be doing my faithful readers a favor. “Not her again!” someone might have been saying every day for the past 350 days. But I know some of you faithfully read what I’ve written because you’ve showed me.

Sometimes you are even kind enough to say something about what I’ve written and leave a comment. I must be a great diplomat. So far, I have attracted no haters. As far as I know, my views have been personal and even enough not to start any divisive or hostile threads.

I am not thrilled with where the world is at this time in history. Humans are unfailingly odd. I grew up in the backwash of the Second World War. Peace, harmony and cooperation were overriding social goals.

That generation knew how badly everything could go wrong if evil prevailed. They had a keen sense of what needed to be done to maintain peace. As human beings generally, we are good at enduring, whether we want to or not.

We seem to have lost that shared understanding of fragile peace. It has been traded for a slavish devotion to materialism and tribalism.

Cheap and easy ways to seek satisfaction abound and ways to buy our way into a sense of belonging. “I’m a Gucci girl!” As if that means anything in the grand scheme of things.

Men and women spend an inordinate amount of time on their external appearance while letting their internal life wither and shrink away. It is as if the way to stay relevant these days is to don the persona of a perpetual adolescent.

A fantastical place where pain doesn’t exist (unless it is in the aid of “beauty”). Where money and resources are in unlimited supply. Where no-one’s needs or feelings matter but your own, because, dammit, I am a Queen.

We can’t blame people. That’s the sales pitch. It is very attractive and looks easy. You can’t be surprised that people buy into it. Until, of course, they don’t.

That happens when reality trumps fantasy and pain becomes very real. And then, the pain when you turn inwards to seek relief and comfort, there is nothing inside you to support and guide you.

Seems the very definition of dystopian to me.

So we’ll see what is ahead. I have learned what works and doesn’t work for me. I have learned that growth is possible at any age if the spirit is willing. I have learned that the world is nuts, was nuts and likely always will be nuts. I just don’t have to engage.

I headed into this exercise with one resonant message. I write for me. If it resonates for you, that’s a bonus. Maybe we could have a discussion about those points of resonance one day. Maybe we could even become friends or colleagues.

I have a better handle today on who I am and what I believe than I did around this time last year. That’s made this writing exercise worthwhile.

A famous maxim on the sign at the Oracle of Delphi says: “Know thyself.” The principal meaning of the phrase in its original application was “know your limits” – either in the sense of knowing the extent of one’s abilities, knowing one’s place in the social scale, or knowing oneself to be mortal.

In the 4th century BC, however, the maxim was drastically re-interpreted by Plato, who understood it to mean, broadly speaking, “know your soul.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_thyself

I’d be happy to share a cup of tea with you and swap some of our soul secrets any time. Just say the word.

Reading Right

I didn’t write this piece on reading. But I could have.

Why do I read?

I just can’t help myself.

I read to learn and to grow, to laugh

and to be motivated.

I read to understand things I’ve never

been exposed to.

I read when I’m crabby, when I’ve just

said monumentally dumb things to the

people I love.

I read for strength to help me when I

feel broken, discouraged, and afraid.

I read when I’m angry at the whole

world.

I read when everything is going right.

I read to find hope.

I read because I’m made up not just of

skin and bones, of sights, feelings,

and a deep need for chocolate, but I’m

also made up of words.

Words describe my thoughts and what’s

hidden in my heart.

Words are alive–when I’ve found a

story that I love, I read it again and

again, like playing a favorite song

over and over.

Reading isn’t passive–I enter the

story with the characters, breathe

their air, feel their frustrations,

scream at them to stop when they’re

about to do something stupid, cry with

them, laugh with them.

Reading for me, is spending time with a

friend.

A book is a friend.

You can never have too many.

Gary Paulsen

(Book: Shelf Life: Stories by the Book [ad] https://amzn.to/3uLtUAC)

Dear Death

Death is on my mind lately.

No particular reason. I occasionally flirt with thoughts of death and dying.

It’s a form of interim stock-taking. Thinking about what’s gone before. What may be ahead. Like routine maintenance. What do I have to tweak or do better to make my inevitable end more calm and peaceful?

One good thing about having a total mid-life meltdown is that it can initiate a major reframing of your life goal and priorities. I used to think it was important for me to be someone important.

I came to learn that making others feel important is more important than being important yourself. Depending on your hopes and dreams.

It comes down to whether you choose to lead your life with your head or your heart. A combination is optimum.

We spend an inordinate amount of time running from the reality of death as our last pit stop. If I manage to avoid a violent and messy end, I expect death will be just one long night’s sleep at the end of the day. If I’m lucky.

I fear the disintegration of physical strength and skill more than I fear death itself. I have often considered what I would do with a terminal cancer diagnosis. Pack up and go home, I think. At that actual moment, my feelings may change.

I like running my own ship. I don’t like to rely on others. Though I do.

So the following quotes helped me reframe my recent thoughts about death and woke me up a little.

I expect dying folks are about the wisest folks there is on the planet.

Whether they are happy about dying or not is a whole other discussion.

Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have.

It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life.

One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.

One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us.

(Book: The Fire Next Time [ad] https://amzn.to/3TcCyl5)

James Baldwin

Mark Twain may have put death in the best perspective of all.

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.” 

Mark Twain

I expect he’s right.

The Courage to be Disliked

I wanted to be a good girl when I grew up. And I wanted to be a nice girl. What I really wanted underneath all that wishing was to be accepted and loved.

Being liked would have been a nice bonus, too, and, as a child, I thought it was an important part of the popularity package.

In terms of social trajectories as I got into my pre-teens and teens, it didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped.

Pain made me bitchy and short with people. Unresolved, the pain and my bitchiness grew in intensity and volume. This might have continued in perpetuity if I hadn’t had children.

Children forced me into a major emotional 180. I was no longer completely in control of everything. Foolishly, I still tried to be.

But slowly, instead of being exclusively externally focussed to define my ambitions, find acceptance, and grow in pride and self-love, that all started to change. By heck and by gosh.

Instead of “going along to get along,” as I had always tried to, my tactics started to change. Do I really believe what I am hearing from other people? Especially family members? Is his/her/their definition of success what I really believe? Or how I want to live?

More and more, the answer became no. It certainly didn’t make me very popular. Certainly not in my family of origin. At a certain point, it started to not matter. I accepted I was “different” from the rest of my family. I became okay with that.

I have experienced the most joy and personal feeling of success and accomplishment far away from my family of origin. But for years, I was deeply enmeshed and dependent on them for emotional validation. Until that stopped working.

It was not a quick fix. It took years to separate from them. It took the death of both parents. It took a lot of years of processing what I had been through and starting to imagine what I wanted my life to be.

I could have used this book I just found back in the day. It accentuates my underlying belief that sometimes you have to lose everything to finally get everything. The only opinion that really matters at the end of the day is yours. If someone agrees with you and backs you up, bonus.

“The Courage to Be Disliked” by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga is a profound book that presents a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man, exploring the concepts of individual happiness and personal freedom through the lens of Alfred Adler’s psychology.

The book delves into how we can liberate ourselves from self-imposed limitations and societal expectations to find genuine happiness.

Here are some key lessons from the book

1. Freedom from the Opinions of Others: The book emphasizes the importance of detaching our self-worth from the opinions of others. It argues that worrying about what others think of us leads to a constrained life where actions are taken not for personal satisfaction but for external validation.

2. The Past Does Not Determine the Future: A central tenet of Adlerian psychology is that our past experiences do not dictate our future. The book challenges the common belief that past traumas and experiences are the cause of our current unhappiness. Instead, it suggests that we have the power to reinterpret our past and choose actions that lead to a happier future.

3. The Goal of Community Feeling: Adlerian psychology posits that a sense of community and belonging is crucial for individual happiness. “The Courage to Be Disliked” teaches that contributing to the well-being of others without expecting anything in return can lead to profound personal satisfaction and a sense of connection with the wider world.

4. Separation of Tasks: The concept of the separation of tasks is crucial in Adlerian psychology. It involves understanding what is within our control and what is not. By focusing on our own tasks and not overstepping into others’ responsibilities, we can maintain healthy relationships and a sense of personal autonomy.

5. The Courage to Be Happy: True happiness requires the courage to change and to be disliked. The book posits that fear of criticism and rejection often holds people back from pursuing what genuinely makes them happy. Embracing the possibility of being disliked for making choices true to oneself is presented as a pathway to freedom and happiness.

6. Self-Acceptance: A significant barrier to happiness is the lack of self-acceptance. The dialogue explores how accepting oneself, with all flaws and shortcomings, is a step toward genuine happiness. It suggests that self-acceptance allows individuals to make positive changes without being hindered by feelings of inferiority.

7. Contribution to Society: Adlerian psychology suggests that making contributions to society is a source of happiness. The book discusses how acts of kindness and contributing to the welfare of others can enhance one’s sense of purpose and satisfaction in life.

8. Living in the Here and Now: The book encourages living in the present rather than being anchored to the past or overly concerned about the future. It suggests that focusing on the here and now allows for a more engaged and fulfilling life.

“The Courage to Be Disliked” offers a compelling argument for reevaluating our approaches to happiness and personal freedom. By incorporating Adlerian principles into our lives, the authors suggest that we can overcome feelings of inadequacy and live more fulfilling, autonomous lives.

Book: https://amzn.to/49olduR