One of the books that I put on my TBR for 2022 was the nonfiction book, The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. I listened to the audiobook version of the book, so this review refers specifically to that version.
Book Description:
The Courage to Be Disliked, already an enormous bestseller in Asia with more than 3.5 million copies sold, demonstrates how to unlock the power within yourself to be the person you truly want to be.
Using the theories of Alfred Adler, one of the three giants of 20th-century psychology, The Courage to Be Disliked follows an illuminating conversation between a philosopher and a young man. The philosopher explains to his pupil how each of us is able to determine our own life, free from the shackles of past experiences, doubts, and the expectations of others. It’s a way of thinking that is deeply liberating, allowing us to develop the courage to change and to ignore the limitations that we and other people have placed on us. The result is a book that is both highly accessible and profound in its importance. Millions have already read and benefited from its wisdom. This truly life-changing audiobook will help you declutter your mind of harmful thoughts and attitudes, helping you to make a lasting change, achieve real happiness, and find success.
An Unconventional Style of Writing
I added this book to my list for the year because I kept seeing people mentioning it and I read a lot of reviews. I wasn’t sure if I would be into the style of writing since it is somewhat unconventional. The book is written like a conversation between an older, wiser man and a younger, curious man. They go back and forth about philosophy and what these concepts truly mean. This style was interesting and I think it made some of the concepts feel more digestible. If I felt like I didn’t agree with one idea and the “younger” man also had hesitations, it opened the door for me to openly question that idea.
I think that this is why the authors chose to use this method of teaching because it allows you to separate yourself from the book. Instead of feeling like you are frustrated by some bizarre idea, there is already a voice in the book that demonstrates that frustration. Then the wiser man takes the time to quell your discomfort with the ideas. But when listening to the narration, there were some issues with this format. I will get into that in the next section.
Overall, the concepts introduced in this book were really interesting. There were definitely philosophical concepts that I had never heard of before. I took psychology and sociology classes in college, and I’m surprised we didn’t spend more time discussing Adler’s ideas (or at least not that I remember.)
The Narration
Narrated by: Noah Galvin, Graeme Malcolm, January LaVoy
This book has three narrators. There is the main narrator, who introduces and reviews concepts at the start and end of some of the chapters. She sometimes repeats concepts for emphasis and she did a great job. Her voice was very easy to listen to. Both men that narrated the young and old men did a good job as well, but it was sometimes a struggle for me to listen to them go back and forth.
The younger man, whose voice sounds almost identical to Jesse Eisenberg (so I ended up picturing him this way for the entire book), is very annoying. I don’t know if this was intentional or not. But his reactions to concepts that he doesn’t agree with are really over the top. He responds in anger and sometimes will “walk out” of the chapter because he is so disturbed by the concepts. This felt very unrealistic and exaggerated. I don’t know if they chose to write him as super dramatic so that people felt their own reactions were accepted or if they really think “young” people respond to philosophy with that much anger and discomfort. If they do, I certainly haven’t seen or experienced it!
Does This Book Deliver On Its Promise?
The premise of this book is that it will give you the courage to be your true self. To no longer care about what anyone thinks of you. It will give you the courage to be disliked. So, did it work?
In some ways, yes. Some of these concepts seemed upside down compared to what I was used to reading in self-help and psychology. I really enjoyed that and while I might not be a whole-hearted convert, I found it helpful to reframe the way I think about situations.
One of the most controversial ideas in this book is the idea that trauma is not real. Trauma has no control over you and if you feel that you behave a certain way because of your trauma, you are wrong. It is actually our own choice to behave that way. An example the authors give is of a man who had a poor relationship with his dad. Classic Freudian thinking would say that he doesn’t have a good relationship with his father because he was abusive to him when he was young. This trauma prevents them from bonding now that they are both adults.
However, this book suggests that we look at the situation as a choice that the son is making. That his true goal is to not have a relationship with his father, so he makes the choice to bring up thoughts about the trauma in order to prevent that relationship from working. He could just as easily choose not to bring up thoughts about the wrongdoings of the past and simply move on if he decides that his goal is to have a relationship with his father.
I was pretty much blown away by this concept. On one hand, it does put the power back in your hands. I don’t believe that we must be controlled by our trauma. However, I think it is pretty extreme to say that trauma itself does not exist. I have read studies about trauma remapping our brains. There is certainly a lot of research into childhood trauma and the ways that we can actually see it manifest itself in the body. Trauma is real. But I can make the choice to take away from this book the concept that trauma does not remove our ability to make choices for our own lives.
There are other examples in the book that felt a little extreme to me. Overall, I really enjoyed the book and I would recommend it to anyone that is interested in philosophy, behavioral studies, and self-improvement.
I believe The Courage to be Disliked does deliver on its promise and you might be surprised by some of the statements within it (such as children should never be praised.) I found many of the concepts useful, and I am glad that I read it. I probably won’t refer to it again in the future, but it was definitely worth a read!
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