This week, our discussion of The Courage to Be Disliked moved on to a much deeper place:
The courage to be disliked does not mean deliberately making people dislike us.
It means accepting that being liked by everyone cannot be the condition under which we live our lives.
We can be kind without chasing approval.
We can care without abandoning our boundaries, and we can choose where our attention and energy go. And if being a “good person” requires everybody around us to be happy with us, saying no becomes incredibly difficult.
One practical idea from the discussion was surprisingly simple:
Practise saying no to small things.
Not every boundary needs to begin with a life changing confrontation.
We can train ourselves through small moments.
Say no.
Don’t invent an elaborate excuse.
Notice the guilt.
And discover that the world continues.
Over time, we learn that another person’s disappointment does not automatically mean that we have done something wrong.
Self acceptance is harder when we fail
Our conversation then moved from other people’s judgment to our own.
It is relatively easy to say: “Yes, I love myself.” But a much harder question is: Do I still accept myself when I fail?
When the business doesn’t work?
When the relationship falls apart?
When we discover something we’re simply not very good at?
When we make an embarrassing mistake?
When we encounter parts of ourselves that we don’t particularly admire?
This is where self acceptance becomes real.
One participant made an important distinction: the book isn’t primarily asking us to “love” every aspect of ourselves. It speaks much more about self acceptance.
That includes accepting our limitations, our flaws, we are not extraordinary at everything, even having the courage to be normal.
The courage to be normal
This became one of my favourite ideas from the evening.
Modern culture constantly tells us that we should be exceptional.
Be outstanding.
Be successful.
Be special.
Be the best version of yourself.
But perhaps there is enormous freedom in accepting that we are also simply human. Someone may be an extraordinary entrepreneur but terrible at something else. Someone may be a brilliant artist but struggle deeply in another area of life, or can be exceptional in one dimension and completely ordinary in another. When everything is put together, perhaps none of us needs to prove that we are special.
We can have ambition without making exceptionalism a requirement for our self worth.
Listen to how you speak to yourself
Another powerful question emerged:
Would you speak to a friend the way you speak to yourself?
When someone we care about fails, we might say:
“It didn’t work this time. What can you learn from it?”
But when we fail, the internal conversation can become:
“You’re stupid.”
“You always mess things up.”
“You should have known better.”
Self acceptance doesn’t mean pretending everything we do is wonderful.
We can analyse our mistakes, take responsibility and improve.
But there is a difference between examining ourselves and attacking ourselves, one of the most practical forms of self acceptance is simply catching that internal voice and changing the language.
Instead of:
“I am terrible at this.”
Try:
“That didn’t go well. What can I do differently next time?”
Don’t forget to live your life
Another part of our discussion focused on work, hobbies and the danger of allowing one part of life to dominate everything else.
Being productive is not necessarily the same as living well.
We can fill every hour with work, responsibilities, hobbies and goals and still leave almost no space simply to exist.
That raised another uncomfortable question:
If I say I love myself, do my actions support that claim?
Do I give myself rest?
Do I give myself time?
Do I allow myself to do things simply because I enjoy them?
Do I leave any space where I don’t have to achieve anything?
Self care doesn’t necessarily mean doing less with our lives.
It may mean making sure our life contains more than performance.
Contribution VS recognition
We also discussed happiness and the difference between wanting recognition and wanting to contribute.
When we begin something, we may desperately want people to notice.
How many people watched? How many people liked it? Did anyone praise us? Did people recognise what we accomplished? But something can change when our attention moves from:
“Do people recognise me?”
to:
“Did I contribute something useful?”
When contribution itself becomes meaningful, external recognition can become less important.
The work still matters even when the numbers are small.
That is another kind of freedom.
Letting go of control does not mean becoming passive
Toward the end of our discussion, we arrived at perhaps the most nuanced question of the evening:
When should we let go, and when should we keep trying?
Several people spoke about learning not to force every outcome.
Sometimes something simply doesn’t work.
Plans change.
Doors close.
Life refuses to follow our script.
There can be peace in accepting that we cannot control everything.
But then an important challenge came:
Be careful not to use “it’s not meant to be” as an excuse for avoidance.
There is a huge difference between surrender and passivity.
Letting go of control does not mean sitting still and waiting for life to deliver what we want.
We still act.
We still try.
We still take risks.
We still walk through the door.
We still make the phone call.
We still apply.
We still tell someone how we feel.
We still build the thing.
Perhaps we only know that something truly isn’t working after we have genuinely participated in trying to make it work.
Effort and ease can exist together
One sentence from the discussion beautifully connected these ideas:
There can be effort without the effort feeling like a fight against yourself.
Something meaningful can require enormous work.
But when we genuinely choose it, we may not resent the effort.
The heaviness is different.
There is a difference between working hard for something we deeply want and constantly forcing ourselves through something because of someone else’s expectations.
And perhaps that gives us a better question than simply asking:
“Is this difficult?”
Instead ask:
“Is this effort mine?”
Am I choosing it?
Does it move me toward something I genuinely value?
Or am I carrying it because I’m afraid of disappointing someone else?
Maybe this is what the courage to be disliked really gives us
Our discussion began with other people’s opinions.
But by the end, it had become a conversation about something much larger:
How do we live from the inside out?
Accept that not everyone will like us.
Stop spending disproportionate energy trying to change their minds.
Learn to say no without drowning in guilt.
Accept our weaknesses as well as our strengths.
Speak to ourselves with the same humanity we offer others.
Contribute without requiring applause.
Let go of outcomes we cannot control.
And still take action toward the life we want.
Perhaps the courage to be disliked is not really about other people at all.
Perhaps it is the courage to stop outsourcing the authorship of our lives.
Do what is yours to do.
Accept what is yours to accept.
Let other people have their opinions.
And keep moving.