The Courage to Be Disliked

02The Hidden Reason We Choose Unhappiness

If we possess the power to choose our own goals and assign our own meanings to life, a glaring question immediately arises: why are so many people deeply unhappy? Surely, no one consciously wakes up in the morning and decides to be miserable. Yet, Adlerian psychology insists that unhappiness is a choice. To understand this seemingly harsh claim, we must explore the concept of lifestyle. In Adler’s terminology, lifestyle does not refer to whether you wear designer clothes or live in a minimalist apartment. It refers to your fundamental worldview, your personality, and the deeply ingrained tendencies you use to navigate life. It is the lens through which you view yourself and others. According to Adler, we choose our lifestyle around the age of ten. At that point in our lives, we assess our surroundings, our family dynamics, and our own perceived strengths and weaknesses, and we decide on a strategy for survival and belonging. Some choose to be the clown to get attention, others choose to be the dutiful overachiever, and some choose to be the helpless victim who needs constant rescuing. The critical point is that we chose this lifestyle. And because we chose it, we can choose again. But changing our lifestyle is incredibly difficult, not because we lack the ability, but because we inherently lack the courage to do so. Consider the comfort of familiarity. Even if your current lifestyle makes you unhappy, it is entirely predictable. You know exactly how people will react to you, you know exactly what kind of disappointments to expect, and you know how to handle your specific brand of misery. It is like wearing a pair of shoes that are a size too small; they hurt, but you are used to the pain. If you were to choose a new lifestyle—say, shifting from a pessimistic victim to an optimistic creator—you would be stepping into complete unknown territory. You would not know how to handle new challenges, you might face unexpected criticism, and you could potentially fail in entirely new ways. The fear of this unknown is so paralyzing that most people decide it is safer to remain in their familiar unhappiness than to risk the uncertainty of change. To see how we actively maintain our chosen lifestyle, let’s look at a common everyday scenario discussed in the book. A man is sitting in a nice restaurant wearing his favorite, expensive suit. A waiter accidentally walks by and spills hot coffee all over the man’s lap. The man immediately erupts, shouting at the waiter, his face red with rage. If you were to ask him what happened, he would say, "The waiter spilled coffee on me, and it made me so angry that I couldn't help but yell." He views his anger as an uncontrollable force that bypassed his rational mind. This is the traditional, cause-and-effect view of emotions. Adler completely disassembles this sequence of events. He argues that the man did not yell because he was angry; rather, the man fabricated the emotion of anger so that he could yell. His goal was to subjugate the waiter, to assert his dominance, and to force an immediate, groveling apology. To achieve this goal quickly and effectively, he needed a tool. Anger was that tool. He pulled it out in a split second to intimidate the waiter. To prove this, consider what would happen if the man’s phone rang right in the middle of his shouting match, and he saw it was his highly respected boss calling. He would likely answer the phone in a calm, polite voice, say, "Hello, sir, how can I help you?" and carry on a normal conversation. The moment he hung up, he would immediately resume shouting at the waiter. This proves that anger is not an uncontrollable internal explosion. It is a highly controllable, purposeful tool that we put away and take out as needed to manipulate others and control our environment. We use our emotions to achieve our hidden goals. When we claim that our emotions "made us do it," we are simply trying to evade responsibility for our actions. We are refusing to admit that we are actively choosing our behavior. This realization applies to feelings of unhappiness as well. If you are chronically unhappy, Adlerian psychology prompts you to ask: what is the hidden goal of my unhappiness? Ofter, the goal is to avoid the difficult tasks of life. If you convince yourself that you are fundamentally flawed, unlucky, or destined for misery, you give yourself a permanent excuse to stop trying. You never have to take the risk of starting a new business, asking someone on a date, or pursuing a difficult dream, because your unhappiness "proves" that it would be pointless anyway. Your misery becomes your armor against the terrifying demands of life. Breaking out of this cycle requires what the authors call the courage to be happy. Happiness is not something that happens to you; it is something you must actively choose, and it requires bravery. It means dropping your weapons of anger, sadness, and victimhood. It means stepping out of your comfortable, predictable misery and facing the world without excuses. When you finally accept that your emotions are tools you control, and your lifestyle is a choice you made, the illusion of helplessness shatters. You realize that you have always held the power to change; you were simply too afraid to use it. Now, the choice is entirely yours.

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