The Courage to be Disliked Full Free Audio Book Summary

The Courage to be Disliked Full Free Audio Book Summary

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Can people change themselves? Who do we actually compete against? How can we be free? What does happiness mean? Should we pursue being the best or embrace being ordinary? It is not difficult to find answers to these questions over the course of these five nights of conversation between a youth and a philosopher. In this dialogue, the youth represents you and me; the philosopher is an incarnation of the psychologist Alfred Adler. Together these two personas explore some of life’s fundamental truths. If you seek enlightenment and want to understand how you can live in a less complex and confusing way, with a freer and more joyous mindset, this book will be of great help.

Overview | Chapter 1

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The book starts with a question. Is the world simple or complicated?

A young person holds the view that the child’s world is almost certainly a simple one, but, with age, the world gradually reveals its complexity. The romantic ideals of childhood soon vanish. With age and experience, in the blink of an eye, brutal realism sets in. As people mature, they are beset with complicated interpersonal relationships. They become tangled up in all sorts of responsibilities. Despite this perception, a philosopher continues to advocate, and with great earnestness, that the world is, in fact, extremely simple. This philosopher claims that everyone can achieve happiness at any time. The youth, who cannot accept such a perspective, visits this philosopher, seeks a debate and wants to shatter the philosopher’s Utopian fantasies.

This youth introduces some examples of various types of suffering in the real world. Yet, the philosopher is steadfast. His answer remains the same, believing that the world is not complicated. Instead, it is the youth who perceives the world to be complicated. The philosopher believes that we do not live in an objective world but, rather, a subjective world built on an individual’s experience of it. Hence everyone perceives the world differently from the next person. Such a subjective perspective can be understood by considering the different feelings people will have in different seasons when they touch the water taken from a well. Underground water almost always holds a stable temperature of 18 degrees all year round, summer and winter. However, people tend to perceive this water to be cool and refreshing in the summer and mild and warm in the winter. On the surface, this appears to be just an illusion brought about by changes in the environment, and yet, it is not fully an illusion. To every person who drinks the water, the coolness or warmth of the well water is an undeniable fact. Such an undeniable reality is what the philosopher is referring to when he says that each person’s world is subjective. Nobody can escape the reality of their own perceptions and the subjectivity of their lived experiences.

The philosopher highlights that the youth’s belief that the world is complex, chaotic, and incomprehensible has nothing to do with the world itself. It is something inside and has to do with the youth’s worldview. If this young person wishes the world to be simple, He needs first to take off his tinted glasses and make some other adjustments. Following the philosopher’s mind, not only will the world become simple, but anyone, without exception, can enjoy that simplicity and, through it, achieve happiness at any time.