Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. Love me and I may be forced to love you. William Arthur Ward
The courage to be disliked doesn’t sound like something we want. But too many of us suffer from people pleasing and it is impossible to please everyone. It takes courage to please ourselves and be the person we think we should be, do what we can, and make peace with what we can’t, knowing everyone won’t be happy.
I finished listening to the book, “The Courage To Be Disliked” by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, it is a book on Adlerian psychology. I’ll have to listen to it several times to take in everything, and I have the hard copy for reference. One of the big ideas in the book is all our problems are interpersonal, our relationships are where most of our problems lie, but also where we get the most happiness from, and one of the big relationships we need to master is with ourselves.
One surprising thing mentioned was neither, to rebuke or praise our children, but instead to thank them when they do something right. Why wouldn’t we want to praise our little grandson for going to the potty instead of in his pants? What about when he doesn’t make it to the potty? Praise is judgment but gratitude is not, and gratitude and respect are how we want to be dealt with. I’ve never thought of praise as, “the passing of judgment by a person of ability on a person of no ability, or lesser ability.”
Our dependency makes slaves out of us, especially if this dependency is a dependency of our self-esteem. If you need encouragement, praise, pats on the back from everybody, then you make everybody your judge. Frederick Salomon Peris
My grandson helps do something and he gets praise, but my husband does the same thing and he gets thanks, would it be better if we give thanks to everyone helping us regardless of age and ability? When we praise or rebuke, we use a carrot or a stick as manipulation tools. In equal relationships, we use gratitude and respect, but in unequal ones, we use praise and rebuke. Encouragement helps people shoulder their responsibilities and take responsibility for their lives.
This is giving me a lot to think about and when I think about Mom and Dad’s parenting there was not a lot of praise for doing what needed to be done. We were part of the family and had chores from an early age and we heard, “Many hands make light work.”
If we get used to hearing a lot of praise from an early age, we may always crave praise, which is someone else’s judgment, instead of relying on our judgment, is this how we become people pleasers?
If we can build relationships where we are equal but not the same it seems this might go a long way toward fixing some of the inequalities and injustice in society. We told our children from an early age, you can be equal or you can be special, but you can’t be both. Do we live in a society where specialness is desired over equality leading to a lot of problems?
Often people ask how I manage to be happy despite having no arms or legs. The quick answer is that I have a choice. I can be angry and not having limbs, or I can be thankful that I have a purpose. I chose gratitude. Nick Vujicic
Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty. Doris Day
According to my principles, every master has his true and certain value. Praise and criticism cannot change any of that. Only the work itself praises and criticizes the master, and therefore I leave to everyone his own value. Carl Philipp Emanuel Back
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