Freedom is Being Disliked By Others
Our task is to do our best not to offend. What happens after that is out of our control.
I am a bit of an introvert. This doesn’t mean I like to shut myself in or anything, I actually like talking to others quite a bit. It just means social interactions drain me, unlike for extroverts like my wife who thrive on it.
For years, I’ve blamed my introvertedness (which I insist is a word, even if spell check disagrees) for my general dislike for Social Media. I’ll dabble in Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so on, but it never can hold my attention for long.
The thing is, being a technophile, I was early on the Social Media bandwagon. My Facebook account goes back to 2005 when Zuckerberg still had “I don’t even know what a quail looks like” show up at the bottom of every 3rd screen or so. I was excited to use it then.
Over time, though, the dread set in. “I’m bothering these people,” I’d tell myself. “They don’t care what I have to say.”
Recently, I finishing reading a philosophy book I’d been tricked into reading by a very non-philosophy sounding summary. It’s a Japanese book called “The Courage to be Disliked” by Fumitake Koga and Ichirou Kishimi.
Koga and Kishimi’s book is formatted like one of Socrates’ classic discussions, all about the work of Alfred Alder. Very much “East Meets West” when it comes to philosophy.
Some of the book was a slog. Some of the examples don’t translate through culture (is “the fear of blushing” really a thing in Japan?). It was also filled with fascinating observations.
The one that stuck out the most was, to quote the book, “freedom is being disliked by other people.”
Not About Trolling, But About Tasks
No, this is not an extremist recruiting philosophy. Koga and Kishimi are not encouraging you to start trolling people, or to post insane ramblings about how the race of humans was bred to be sacrificed to the CHUDs when the full moon shatters and the sun drips from the sky like blood.
Fortunately, that’s not what Koga and Kishimi mean.
No, Koga and Kishimi are talking about tasks. Whose task belongs to whom. It’s something we get mixed up all the time.
Let’s use their example of schoolwork. It is, ultimately, the child’s task to learn. We parents want to force our kids to learn something, but that’s not our task. To paraphrase the petulant teenager, we can’t make them.
A parent pretending we have control over what our kids learn is going to just cause frustration on all sides. We can guide, we can support. But we can’t make them.
(Realizing it’s not my task to gather friends for my son has been a recent painful realization for me)
Back to the Koga and Kishimi:
“Not wanting to be disliked is probably my task, but whether or not so-and-so dislikes me is the other person’s task. Even if there is a person who doesn’t think well of me, I cannot intervene in that.”
In other words, we shouldn’t try to be disliked. It is absolutely our task not to troll others or purposefully inflame the internet because we want to watch the world burn.
It is not, however, our task to make others like us.
If we live our whole lives focusing on whether or not other people like us, we are not free.
Hence “freedom is being disliked by other people.”
I’m Trying to Find Freedom
Growing up, my super power in school was realizing what the teachers wanted and giving it to them. I was pretty good with my peers, too, willing to change (to some extent) my likes to fit in with what they wanted.
Having any sort of social media audience makes that impossible. Someone will hate what I write, even if it’s the most benign, obvious comment imaginable.
[Me: “Gravity keeps us here.”
Internet Troll: “NO! Gravity’s a myth! The Earth sucks!”]
That’s been my weakness on social media. I’ve blamed it on introversion, but the truth is that I’ve been concerned with making sure EVERYONE is happy.
But that’s not my task. I need to do the best I can. I want to put good work out there and thoughtful comments. But ultimately, if someone chooses to dislike what I write or say, that’s up to them.
Freedom is being okay with others not liking me. I tell myself that as I’m making an effort to be more public with sharing my work.
Have you found the courage to be disliked? Has it made your life better?
This is a (very) modified version of a newsletter article I put out a while ago. If you’d like to read more like it, including a free, 6 day mini course on putting together your independent entrepreneurial venture, I’d love it if you sign up for it here.
