Monica’s Reviews > The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness > Status Update

“When one is sad, one should be sad to one’s heart’s content. It is precisely when one tries to escape the pain and sadness that one gets stuck and ceases to be able to build deep relationships with anyone. Think about it this way. We can believe. And we can doubt. But we are aspiring to see others as our comrades. To believe or to doubt—the choice should be clear.”

“Yes. When reward is at the base of an interpersonal relationship, there’s a feeling that wells up in one that says, “I gave this much, so you should give me that much back.” This is a notion that is quite different from separation of tasks, of course. We must not seek reward, and we must not be tied to it.”

“We humans are not so fragile as to simply be at the mercy of etiological (cause and effect) traumas.

“When one can think, Whenever I am with this person, I can behave freely, one can really feel love”

“If someone were to abuse me to my face, I would think about the person’s hidden goal. Even if you are not directly abusive, when you feel genuinely angry due to another person’s words or behavior, please consider that the person is challenging you to a power struggle.”

“They use their misfortune to their advantage and try and control the other party with it. By declaring how unfortunate they are and how much they have suffered, they are trying to worry the people around them and to restrict their speech and behavior and control them.”