I’ve been reading a book for over a month now, but I still haven’t finished it. Maybe it’s because there’s a lot to absorb. There are many interesting chapters, but one thing that stayed with me is this. Don’t praise or rebuke, just focus on encouragement.
The book is called The Courage to Be Disliked, and it’s written by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. It’s a conversation between a young man and a philosopher, discussing Adlerian philosophy. There are many thought-provoking ideas, but the chapter “To live in earnest in the here and now” was especially hard to understand and accept. I’m still trying to adjust to it.
The philosopher says we shouldn’t praise or rebuke others. The young man argues that praise gives us confidence to face challenges, even life tasks. But the philosopher explains that praise is based on someone’s idea of what’s good or bad. When someone praises you as “good,” it means you’re being measured by their standards, which limits your freedom.
If receiving praise is what one is after, one will have no choice but to adapt to that person’s yardstick and put the brakes on one’s own freedom.
The idea here is that praise can manipulate people into fitting into a vertical hierarchy in relationships. An example given is how parents praise their children for good behavior. Now, think of this “good girl syndrome.” We are adjust ourselves to get the tag or label of good girl. The authenticity is lost/limited. Then it all made sense to me, but I’m still unsure if all praise leads to a hierarchy or if it’s always manipulative. These thoughts keep spinning in my mind. Yet, it gives a kind of awareness that it could be manipulative too.
The book could have explained more about why not rebuke and it isn’t stressed, but it does suggest an alternative to praising, “Encouragement”. At first, it might seem confusing, but the more you think about it, the clearer it becomes.
Maybe to avoid this, we could use a simple trick. When someone praises us, just say எல்லா புகழும் இறைவன் ஒருவனுக்கே (All praise belongs to God alone)! and move on. And when rebuked, we can simply say, Let me think about it, and move on. This reminds me of This too shall pass story But never let yourself fall!
Cheers
Check out the previous post: Expectations
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