This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "The Courage to Be Happy" by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.
Like this article? Sign up for a free trial here.
Do you enjoy happiness and fulfillment in your relationships? Would you like to cultivate a stronger sense of community in your life?
In The Courage to Be Happy, counselor Ichiro Kishimi and author Fumitake Koga explore the work of early 20th-century psychotherapist Alfred Adler and discuss why his ideas are still relevant. They explain Gemeinschaftsgefühl, Adler’s concept that translates to “community feeling,” or sense of community.
Continue reading to discover how Adler’s teachings can transform your approach to relationships and community.
Gemeinschaftsgefühl
Gemeinschaftsgefühl, Adler’s concept of community feeling, suggests that our interpersonal connections are key to our well-being. By contributing to our community, respecting others, and nurturing fundamental relationships, we can boost our happiness and life satisfaction.
The authors say that humans are social by nature, so interpersonal relationships are a fundamental part of life and happiness. In fact, Adler taught that all hardships and joys stem from our interactions with other people. Therefore, the quality of our relationships shapes our well-being and overall life satisfaction.
We’ll discuss why contributing to your community can boost your happiness, why you should offer respect freely to everyone (and what “respect” really means), and the three fundamental types of relationships in Adlerian psychology.
Contribute to Your Community
The authors start by saying that contributing to your community is essential for your personal happiness and fulfillment. Adler taught that happiness comes from feeling useful; that feeling, in turn, helps you develop Gemeinschaftsgefühl—a sense of worth and belonging in your community, which is crucial for your overall well-being.
(Shortform note: This theory that you need feelings of worth and belonging in order to be happy closely resembles what social worker Brené Brown says is needed to live wholeheartedly—which is to say, to boldly pursue the life you want. In Daring Greatly, Brown says that every person needs to connect with others in order to be happy because we all need to experience feelings of love and belonging. She also says that shame—feeling like you aren’t enough as you are—is the greatest obstacle to connection. While Kishimi and Koga say that usefulness is the key to developing a sense of self-worth (or, as Brown would say, overcoming shame), Brown disagrees; she says that being open, honest, and emotionally vulnerable is the key to overcoming shame.)
However, Kishimi and Koga also say that value can only exist in relation to others. Therefore, it’s not enough to just try to be productive—you have to be useful to someone else in order to feel valued. In other words, no matter how much you accomplish, it won’t be satisfying if it’s only for your own benefit.
With that said, Adler taught that you don’t always need to perform concrete acts of contribution to experience this sense of belonging and worth. You can improve the lives of those around you simply by participating in your community.
(Shortform note: In addition to bolstering your sense of self-worth, becoming useful and well-liked in your community is likely to have more tangible benefits as well. In The Happiness Hypothesis, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt says humans have an instinct that he calls the Reciprocity Reflex: a drive to repay others for what they do for us, whether those actions were helpful or harmful. Therefore, if you have a good reputation and frequently help others, the people in your community are likely to also do nice things for you. Conversely, if you have a bad reputation—for instance, people think you’re unfriendly, or you’re known for bullying others—the other members of your community are likely to work against you in order to get payback.)
Respect Others for Who They Are
Another important aspect of Adlerian psychology that Kishimi and Koga highlight is the free offering of respect to others. In Adlerian terms, respect that’s freely given starts by recognizing someone for who they are as an individual.
Once you recognize someone’s individuality, you don’t try to alter who they are—instead, you accept them in their current form with no stipulations. If you try to manipulate someone to make them be different, you’re not showing them respect. It may help if you consider “respect” to be synonymous with “trust.” The authors say that respecting someone means you have complete confidence in them, and therefore you don’t feel any need to change or manipulate them.
The authors also say that respect (or trust) is a choice that you make based on your willpower and courage; respect comes from within you, not from the other person’s character or abilities. This means that you can offer respect to all people: loved ones, passing strangers, coworkers, and people you’ll never meet.
| Developing Universal Feelings of Respect and Love This description of respect closely resembles the Buddhist practice of metta, commonly translated as “lovingkindness.” Put simply, metta is a wish for universal health and happiness—it means respecting and caring for everyone, even people you’ve never met and people whom you dislike. Metta is traditionally achieved through meditation. You begin by cultivating a wish for universal health and happiness. Start by focusing on yourself, reflecting on your own innate goodness, and offering yourself wishes for peace, joy, and feelings of metta. Recognize that you, like all beings, deserve happiness and well-being. Next, expand your circle of lovingkindness to include the people closest to you. Choose a single person whose goodness is easiest for you to see, such as a child, parent, grandparent, or friend. Meditate on what you love about that person and offer them the same wish for happiness that you offered yourself. Once you’ve done this, widen your circle of metta to include other people you’re close to, then people you don’t know as well, and eventually, people whom you don’t know at all. Extend your wishes for their peace, joy, and well-being, recognizing that all beings desire and deserve happiness. |
———End of Preview———
Like what you just read? Read the rest of the world's best book summary and analysis of Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga's "The Courage to Be Happy" at Shortform.
Here's what you'll find in our full The Courage to Be Happy summary:
- What the earliest days of psychology can teach you about being happy
- How to raise children to be independent with a strong sense of community
- How to apply Adlerian psychology to your own life
