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Why We Stay Unhappy
Most people remain unhappy not because of their circumstances, but because they’re still living with a childhood mindset. As children, we learned to control others through weakness—crying to get attention, displaying incompetence to avoid responsibility, or emphasizing our suffering to manipulate caregivers. This strategy worked when we were young, but many adults never outgrow it.
The core issue is that we continue seeking to be loved, approved of, and validated by others, rather than learning to love and validate ourselves. We remain stuck in self-centeredness, treating life as if we’re still the center of the universe waiting for others to serve our needs.
The Trap of “That Bad Person” and “Poor Me”
When people complain about their problems, they’re usually focusing on one of two things: blaming others (“that bad person made my life difficult”) or pitying themselves (“poor me, look at what happened to me”). Neither of these perspectives leads to change because they keep attention on the past and on factors outside our control.
The only productive question is: “What should I do from now on?” Everything else is a distraction from taking responsibility for our own lives.
The Illusion of the Past Controlling Us
We believe the past determines our present, but this is backwards. Our present actually determines how we interpret our past. When we want to justify staying stuck, we paint our past in dark colors and blame it for our current situation. When we’re content with ourselves, the same past events become “learning experiences” or “character-building challenges.”
The past doesn’t exist as an objective reality—it only exists as the story we tell ourselves right now. History is constantly rewritten by whoever holds power in the present, and we do the same with our personal histories. We select memories that support our current lifestyle and goals, and ignore or forget those that don’t fit.
The Disease of Competition
Modern society—and especially education systems—are infected with competition. When communities operate on the principle that some people must win while others lose, several destructive patterns emerge:
- People come to see others as enemies rather than allies
- Self-worth becomes tied to being “better than” rather than “contributing to”
- Those who can’t win through conventional means turn to problem behaviors to gain attention
- The focus shifts from cooperation to individual advancement at others’ expense
This competitive mindset is at the root of most interpersonal problems, from classroom disruption to workplace dysfunction to relationship breakdown.
EDUCATION: The Purpose and the Problem
Self-Reliance is the True Goal
The objective of education—whether in schools, parenting, or counseling—is self-reliance. But this doesn’t mean economic independence or living alone. Self-reliance means psychological freedom from needing others to validate your worth.
True self-reliance is “breaking away from self-centeredness.” It’s the ability to shift your focus from “what can I get?” to “what can I give?” It means no longer needing to be special, praised, or even noticed to feel your life has value.
Why Praise and Punishment Fail
Most education relies on a system of rewards and punishments—praising good behavior and rebuking bad behavior. This approach fundamentally undermines self-reliance for several reasons:
The Problem with Praise:
- Praise is a form of manipulation—it’s a superior judging an inferior and using approval to control behavior
- It creates dependency on external validation rather than internal motivation
- It generates competition as people vie for limited praise
- Those who are praised develop a lifestyle of “I only have worth when others approve of me”
- Eventually, people need constant praise to function, never developing genuine self-approval
The Problem with Punishment:
- Rebuke and anger are immature forms of communication—violence dressed up as discipline
- They damage respect, and without mutual respect, no real relationship or learning can occur
- They don’t work (if they did, you wouldn’t need to keep rebuking the same behaviors)
- They teach people to avoid punishment rather than to think about what’s right
- Students don’t change because they understand; they submit out of fear
Both praise and punishment keep people dependent and prevent them from learning to evaluate their own choices and determine their own worth.
The Five Stages of Problem Behavior
When children (or adults) engage in disruptive behavior, they’re usually pursuing one of five goals, each representing an escalating attempt to find belonging:
Stage 1 – Demand for Admiration: Trying to be the “good child” or star performer to gain praise and a special position. The goal is recognition through excellence.
Stage 2 – Attention Drawing: When being good doesn’t work, seeking attention through disruption. Being rebuked is better than being ignored because at least it confirms you exist and have impact.
Stage 3 – Power Struggles: Directly challenging authority to prove one’s strength. The goal shifts from “notice me” to “you can’t control me.”
Stage 4 – Revenge: When power struggles fail, seeking connection through hatred. “If you won’t love me, at least hate me—just don’t ignore me.” Includes self-harm to make others feel guilty.
Stage 5 – Proof of Incompetence: Complete withdrawal—acting utterly incapable so no one will expect anything. “I’m so incompetent you should just leave me alone.”
The crucial insight is that these behaviors aren’t individual problems but symptoms of a sick community. The problem isn’t the child—it’s the competitive, respect-lacking environment that forces children to fight for their sense of belonging.
THE FOUNDATION: Respect and Relationship
What Respect Really Means
Respect isn’t about admiration or deference to authority. Real respect means “the ability to see a person as he is”—to perceive and value someone’s unique individuality without trying to change them to fit your preferences.
Respect means accepting someone as they are, without conditions. It means believing they have worth simply by existing, not because they’ve achieved something or pleased you. This unconditional acceptance is the only foundation on which genuine growth can occur.
To show respect in practice:
- Have concern for what others care about, even if those concerns seem trivial to you
- Try to see the world through their eyes, hear with their ears, feel with their heart
- Don’t impose your value system on them
- Trust that they have the capacity to solve their own problems
Trust vs. Confidence
There’s a critical difference between trust and confidence:
Trust is conditional. You trust based on evidence—collateral, track record, or mutual benefit. Trust is the foundation of work relationships where cooperation is based on shared interests. “I’ll work with you because it benefits both of us.”
Confidence is unconditional. You have confidence in someone without guarantees, without requiring proof they’ll respond how you want. Confidence is the foundation of friendship and love. “I believe in you regardless of what you do or how you respond.”
Most people only trust—they only give when they expect something back. Moving to confidence is essential for real connection, but it requires courage because you might not receive anything in return.
Starting from Your Side
You cannot force others to respect you or have confidence in you. The only thing you can control is whether you respect and have confidence in them.
If you want students to listen to you, respect them first—without waiting for them to “earn” it. If you want colleagues to cooperate, have confidence in them first. If you want to be loved, love first—without guarantees.
This isn’t naive optimism. It’s recognition that relationships begin with your choice, not theirs. “Give, and it shall be given unto you” doesn’t mean you give in order to receive. It means that giving is the only path that can possibly lead to receiving, even though it comes with no guarantees.
The Separation of Tasks
A crucial concept for healthy relationships is asking: “Whose task is this ultimately?” The task belongs to whoever will receive the final consequences of the choice.
Whether a child studies is the child’s task—they’ll face the consequences of not studying, not you. How someone responds to your love is their task—you can’t control it. What judgment others pass on your life is their task—you can only control your own actions.
This doesn’t mean abandoning people. It means recognizing what you can and cannot control, and focusing your energy appropriately. You can offer help, resources, and support, but you cannot—and should not—do their task for them.
Intervening in others’ tasks keeps them dependent and robs them of the opportunity to become self-reliant. It also burdens you with responsibility for outcomes you cannot actually control.
THE LIFE TASKS: Work, Friendship, and Love
Why These Three Tasks Matter
Adler identified three fundamental challenges every person must face to live well in society: work, friendship, and love. These aren’t just activities—they’re relationships at different depths that all humans must navigate to find belonging and happiness.
All problems are interpersonal relationship problems, and all happiness is interpersonal relationship happiness. We can’t escape other people, so the question isn’t whether to engage in relationships but how.
Work and Division of Labor
Humans are physically weak—we can’t outrun predators, we lack sharp claws or thick fur. Our survival strategy was forming communities and dividing labor. One person makes tools, another hunts, another tends children. Through cooperation, we accomplish what no individual could alone.
Work relationships are based on mutual benefit and trust. You don’t need to like your coworkers personally; you cooperate because it serves everyone’s interests. This is healthy and necessary—there’s nothing wrong with self-interest as the foundation of professional relationships.
From the division-of-labor perspective, all jobs are equally honorable. Whether you’re a CEO or a janitor, society needs someone to do that work. Your worth isn’t determined by which job you do but by the attitude with which you do it—your integrity, reliability, and contribution.
The mistake is trying to prove your worth through work alone. Work relationships, being based on function and utility, will never provide the deep sense of belonging humans need. You need friendship and love for that.
Friendship and Community Feeling
Friendship relationships are based on confidence—believing in others without conditions or expectation of return. Unlike work relationships where cooperation is based on mutual benefit, friendship is about connection for its own sake.
Through friendship, we learn to see with others’ eyes, hear with others’ ears, and feel with others’ hearts. We develop empathy—the skill of imagining what life is like for someone else. This isn’t just sympathy (feeling sorry for someone) but the active practice of trying to understand their perspective from inside their experience.
The crucial insight about community feeling is that it’s not something we need to acquire—it already exists within us. Humans survived because we’re wired for cooperation. Our physical weakness forced us to develop an instinct for community. We’re social animals who literally cannot survive in isolation.
The task isn’t to create community feeling but to dig it up from within ourselves by practicing concern for others, moving beyond self-centeredness, and recognizing our fundamental interdependence.
The Problem of Seeking Destiny
Many people claim they can’t find love because they haven’t met “the right person” or “the one.” This is usually a sophisticated avoidance strategy.
The belief in a destined soulmate serves to eliminate all actual candidates. Every real person has flaws, so you can always find reasons they’re “not quite right.” Meanwhile, you wait for the perfect person, which allows you to avoid the risk and responsibility of actually loving someone.
There is no destined one. Love isn’t something you fall into—it’s something you build. If you’re capable of love, you can love anyone you decide to love.
LOVE: The Highest and Most Difficult Task
What Love Actually Is
Love is radically misunderstood. It’s not a feeling that overtakes you, not a reward for finding the perfect person, not a biological drive or mystical destiny.
Love is a decision. It’s a commitment. It’s a promise. More specifically, love is “a task accomplished by two people”—the collaborative project of building a happy life together.
Real love begins after the infatuation phase—after the wedding in fairy tales, when the movie credits roll. Love is what happens in daily life, day after day, year after year, when you keep choosing this person and this shared life even when it’s difficult.
From “Me” to “Us”
The transformation that makes love powerful is a shift in the subject of life. Most people live with “I” as the subject—seeking my happiness, my success, my satisfaction.
In genuine work relationships, you pursue mutual benefit—”my happiness in a way that supports your happiness because we both benefit.”
In friendship, you pursue the other’s happiness—”I want what’s good for you, regardless of what I get back.”
But in love, the subject changes from “me” or “you” to “us.” You pursue the happiness of an inseparable “us.” Neither my individual happiness nor your individual happiness is the goal—only our shared happiness matters.
This isn’t about self-sacrifice or losing yourself. It’s about expanding yourself to include another person so completely that their wellbeing becomes as important as your own, not out of duty but because they’re part of who you are now.
Liberation from Self-Centeredness
This is why love is the gateway to both self-reliance and community feeling. Love forces you to break out of self-centeredness because you can’t maintain an “us” while staying focused only on yourself.
When you genuinely love, you escape the prison of “what about me?” You stop evaluating everything in terms of how it affects you. You start naturally considering how decisions impact both of you, how to contribute to shared happiness, how to support the other’s growth.
This liberation from self is what genuine self-reliance actually is. As long as you’re trapped in “me,” you remain dependent on others for validation, approval, and worth. Only by transcending self-centeredness through love do you discover your worth isn’t dependent on anything external.
And this “us” that begins with one other person gradually expands to encompass more people, eventually reaching the entire human community. That expansion is community feeling.
The Courage Love Requires
People fear not being loved, but the deeper fear is of loving. Being loved is passive—it might happen or might not, and there’s not much you can do. But loving requires active choice and carries real risks:
- You might love someone who doesn’t love you back
- You might commit fully and then face loss
- You might be vulnerable and get hurt
- You might give everything and receive nothing
Most people avoid these risks by:
- Waiting for guarantees before loving (which never come)
- Only loving people who clearly love them first (which isn’t really love)
- Holding back emotionally while testing the relationship (which prevents real intimacy)
- Looking for the “perfect” person (who doesn’t exist)
Love requires faith—not religious faith, but existential faith. You commit without guarantees. You give yourself completely. You build a life together knowing the future is uncertain and this person will never be perfect.
This is why love takes more courage than anything else in life.
How to Actually Love
Choose your partner, not your target. Marriage isn’t about finding someone who checks all your boxes. It’s about choosing a way of living—the kind of life you want to build and whether you want to build it with this person.
With sufficient commitment and courage, you can build love with anyone. The question isn’t “Is this the right person?” but “Am I willing to make the right relationship with this person?”
Dance together in the present. Don’t fixate on where the relationship should go or what it should become. Hold hands with your partner and dance—focusing on this moment, this day, this shared experience.
The destiny you seek isn’t out there waiting to be found. You create it together through the accumulation of present moments fully lived and fully shared.
Take responsibility for loving. Don’t wait for the other person to love you first, make you happy, or create the relationship you want. Your task is to love them—how they respond is their task, which you cannot control.
You water the plant whether or not it blooms. You care for the relationship whether or not it always feels good. That’s what it means to love rather than just enjoy being loved.
Build toward the best possible parting. All relationships end—through death if nothing else. The goal is to live so that when parting comes, you can honestly say, “Meeting this person and sharing life with them was not a mistake.”
This requires ceaseless effort to be worthy of the time you’ve shared, to honor the gift of this relationship by making it the best it can be. Not for the outcome, but because that’s what love is.
PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR DAILY LIFE
The Reality of “Nothing Days”
Most of life isn’t made up of dramatic turning points—college admissions, job offers, weddings. Most of life is ordinary days when nothing special happens.
These “nothing days” are your real trial. It’s easy to be good during crises or celebrations. It’s hard to keep showing up with integrity, respect, and love on Tuesday afternoon when you’re tired and nothing exciting is happening.
The principles are simple. Living them consistently is difficult. This is where courage is actually tested.
Starting Now
Many people worry they’ve wasted too much time or that they’re too damaged to change. Adler was asked, “Is there a time limit for change?” He replied, “Yes—until the day before you meet your maker.”
It’s not too late until you’re dead. Every single day offers the opportunity to choose differently, to begin living from new principles, to take the first step on a different path.
The important thing isn’t how long you’ve been stuck or how far you need to go. It’s whether you’re willing to start walking today.
You Don’t Need Perfect Understanding
Many people think they need to fully understand everything before taking action. They want to study more, think more, prepare more. This is usually avoidance.
You don’t need perfect clarity to begin. Take the first step with the understanding you have. You’ll learn more by walking than by standing still and thinking about walking.
Change comes from action, not from contemplation. Understanding deepens through practice, not through more analysis.
The Importance of Giving First
In every relationship—parent and child, teacher and student, employer and employee, partners in love—someone has to give first without guarantees.
Most people wait. “I’ll respect them when they respect me.” “I’ll trust them when they prove trustworthy.” “I’ll love them when they love me.” This creates deadlock where no one moves.
Real change requires someone to break the stalemate by giving first—offering respect without waiting for it, showing confidence without demanding proof, loving without requiring reciprocation.
This isn’t naive or weak. It’s the only strategy that can possibly work because you cannot control what others do, only what you do. And often, though not always, others respond to genuine giving by giving in return.
The Serenity Prayer Applied
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to tell the difference.”
You cannot change:
- The past
- Other people’s thoughts, feelings, and choices
- Whether you’re loved, praised, or approved of
- Your fundamental circumstances (at least not immediately)
You can change:
- How you interpret your past
- Your own thoughts, feelings, and choices
- Whether you love, praise, and approve of others
- Your attitude toward and response to circumstances
Stop lamenting what you cannot change. Focus all your energy on what you can change. That’s where your power lies.
THE TRANSFORMATION: What Changes When You Understand
From Dependence to Self-Reliance
When you’re dependent, your worth is determined by others. You need their approval, praise, and recognition to feel you matter. This makes you a puppet—you must dance to their tune or feel worthless.
Self-reliance means determining your own worth. Not arrogantly (“I’m better than others”) but simply (“I have worth just by existing”). You don’t need to be special, superior, or even noticed. You can approve of yourself regardless of what anyone else thinks.
This paradoxically makes you more connected to others, not less. When you don’t need their approval, you can actually see them and care about them for who they are, not just as sources of validation.
From Competition to Cooperation
Competition makes everyone your potential enemy. You must be vigilant against others taking what’s “yours”—whether that’s attention, success, love, or status. Life becomes exhausting warfare.
Cooperation makes everyone your potential ally. You recognize that all humans are fundamentally in the same situation, all trying to live good lives, all deserving of respect. You can celebrate others’ successes because they don’t diminish you.
This doesn’t mean naive passivity in the face of genuine threats. It means not creating enemies where they don’t exist, not fighting battles that don’t need to be fought.
From Seeking to Giving
The dependent person is always seeking—seeking love, seeking recognition, seeking happiness, seeking fulfillment. They wait for life to give them what they need.
The self-reliant person gives—gives respect, gives confidence, gives love, gives contribution. They create rather than wait. They understand that happiness comes from giving, not receiving.
This isn’t saintly self-sacrifice. It’s recognition that the feeling of contribution—the sense that your existence matters and helps others—is what actually produces happiness. You can’t get that by receiving; you can only get it by giving.
From Past to Present to Future
People trapped in the past constantly reference what happened to them, what was done to them, why they are the way they are. They’re controlled by history.
People stuck in the present moment might seem free, but often they’re just avoiding—taking each day as it comes without direction or meaning, pursuing pleasure without purpose.
People who understand Adlerian psychology orient toward the future while fully inhabiting the present. They know where they want to go (self-reliance, cooperation, contribution, love) and they take action today to move in that direction. They’re not controlled by the past, not avoiding through the present, but actively creating their future through present choices.
CORE TAKEAWAYS
1. Self-Reliance is Breaking Free from Self-Centeredness
True independence isn’t economic or physical—it’s psychological. You become self-reliant not by needing nothing from others, but by no longer needing others to validate your worth. Paradoxically, you achieve this by moving beyond focus on self toward focus on contribution to others.
2. The Past Does Not Determine the Present
You are not controlled by what happened to you. You choose the meaning you give to past events based on your current goals. The past is a story you tell yourself, and you can retell it differently. Your present choices determine your life, not your history.
3. All Problems Are Interpersonal, and So Are All Solutions
Suffering arises from relationship difficulties, and happiness arises from relationship quality. You cannot escape others, so the question is only how to relate. The answer: respect, confidence, cooperation, and love.
4. Competition is a Disease; Cooperation is the Cure
Systems based on praise and punishment create competition, which makes others into enemies and keeps everyone fighting for limited recognition. The alternative is a cooperative community where everyone has worth simply by belonging and contributing.
5. Respect Means Accepting Others As They Are
Real respect isn’t admiration for achievements. It’s seeing people as they actually are and valuing them without conditions. You don’t try to change them into what you prefer. This unconditional acceptance is the only foundation for genuine growth.
6. Give Without Waiting for Guarantees
You cannot force respect, confidence, or love. You can only offer it first, without knowing if you’ll receive it back. This requires courage, but it’s the only path that can possibly lead to the connection you seek. Wait for guarantees and you’ll wait forever.
7. Love is Not Falling—It’s Building
Love isn’t a feeling that happens to you or a destiny you find. It’s a decision to commit, a daily choice to build a shared life. You don’t fall in love with the right person; you create love through sustained dedication to the task accomplished by two people.
8. The Subject Must Change from “Me” to “Us”
The transformation that breaks self-centeredness and opens the path to both self-reliance and community feeling is changing the subject of your life. Not seeking your individual happiness or sacrificing for others’ happiness, but building a shared “us” whose happiness becomes your north star.
9. Start Now and Keep Walking
You don’t need perfect understanding before beginning. You don’t need ideal circumstances. You don’t need the past to be different. You need only to take the first step today, and then another step tomorrow. The trial is in the ordinary days, the consistent effort, the keeping going when nothing dramatic happens.
10. Happiness is the Feeling of Contribution
You become happy not by receiving love, praise, or success, but by feeling you contribute to others. This feeling can be entirely subjective—you don’t need proof or recognition. Simply living with the sense that your existence matters to others produces the feeling of contribution that is happiness itself.