There was an international loneliness scale circulating on the Internet. This table divides people's loneliness into ten levels, which are:
Going to the supermarket alone, going to a fast food restaurant alone, going to a cafe alone, going to the movies alone, going alone Eat hot pot, go to KTV alone, go see the sea alone, go to an amusement park alone, move alone, and have surgery alone. I don’t know what level you can tolerate? Of course, some people may say: "I have done all these things, I am a lonely person, I can endure loneliness." But please note that eating, shopping and living alone does not mean loneliness, it only shows that comparison Good at being alone; if you are allowed to return to a familiar social circle, you can still get together with friends and spend time with your family. Truly lonely people are afraid of social interaction, have closed their hearts, are unwilling to communicate with others, and are unable to establish normal interpersonal relationships with others. This kind of loneliness is harmful, because long-term self-isolation will reduce people's mental health. So, how do we get out of this state of loneliness? The answer is in this book.
The author of "Out of Loneliness" is Austrian psychologist Alfred Adler. Along with Freud and Jung, he is known as the three giants of psychology. Adler had a relationship with Freud for a while, but later they parted ways due to differences in their views. Later, Adler set up his own business and founded individual psychology.
This book is the essence of Adler's thought. In the book, Adler elaborates on the causes of loneliness and gives guidance on how to get out of loneliness. After reading this book, you will know how to get out of loneliness.
Next, I will split this book into three parts to interpret the essence of this book for everyone.
First of all, you will understand what loneliness is; secondly, you will understand that the root cause of loneliness is a sense of inferiority; finally, you will understand how to get out of loneliness.
After learning, you will re-recognize loneliness, slowly open your closed heart, and establish cooperative relationships with others, thereby getting out of loneliness.
Let’s start learning!
01What is loneliness?
According to data from the "2018 Statistical Bulletin on Civil Affairs Development", the number of single adults in my country exceeded 200 million in 2018, including more than 77 million adults living alone.
In view of this huge group of people living alone, many businesses have sensed business opportunities, and the "loneliness economy" economic industry chain has emerged and is growing day by day.
What is the "loneliness economy"?
To put it simply, it is a variety of social services customized by businesses to meet a person's requirements.
For example, when everyone went to eat hot pot, they had to call a few people, but it was very inconvenient for people who lived alone. Therefore, some businesses have launched mini hot pots, so that one person can eat hot pot.
Gradually, things like mini KTV, small gym, and one-person customized travel have gradually become mainstream.
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It can be said that as long as you want to do something alone, you can find the corresponding service.
With the emergence of this phenomenon, the word loneliness has been mentioned again and again. Many people feel that doing these things alone seems lonely.
This makes us have to think about a question: Does doing something alone mean loneliness?
If Liang Wendao were to answer this question, he would definitely say no. Because he often goes out to eat alone, but he never feels lonely.
Ma Jiahui often lives alone and uses this time to write. However, after he finishes writing, he still has to return to normal social life.
There is a difference between loneliness and being alone, and being alone is also good for us.
For example, if you have been at work all day, and when you get back to your apartment after get off work, you may just want to lie down on the sofa and have a good rest, and do not want to deal with extra social life.
If your friend calls you at this time and asks you to go out for a party, you will actually refuse in your heart.
Sometimes, you may have to prepare for a qualification exam or review your work, so being alone is necessary for you.
So, living alone or eating hot pot and shopping alone does not necessarily mean you will be lonely.
So, what is true loneliness?
The author puts forward such a definition: behind loneliness is hostility to the crowd.
We can understand this sentence this way. If you don’t feel there is any problem when doing something alone, but feel very free, then you are not alone.
But you are forced to do something alone, because you can't find anyone you can trust to cooperate with you, then you are a lonely person.
In other words, you have erected a barrier in your heart to isolate yourself from other people. Therefore, you cannot integrate into society and establish cooperative relationships with other people.
To give a simple example, people like criminals, alcoholics, and suicides are actually extremely lonely people inside.
Because when they encounter problems, they will not think about asking others for help and establishing cooperative relationships with others. They only care about their own success and are unwilling and unable to integrate into society. Adler believed that this was an important reason for their failure.
People with social phobia and good people are actually lonely people. Although they appear to be harmless to others and society, they are full of hostility toward others and unable to establish cooperative relationships with others.
For example, good people in the workplace would rather suffer a lot of injustice themselves than dare to refuse their colleagues’ requests, because they are afraid that if they refuse, their colleagues will hate and reject them.
They regard the people around them as savage beasts. As long as someone accuses them, they will feel anxious in their hearts.
So, it is not only living in isolation that is called seclusion, but the loneliness in the crowd is biting.
The above is the explanation of what loneliness is. Doing something alone does not mean loneliness. True loneliness refers to the inability to integrate into society and establish cooperative relationships with other people.
With this form of loneliness, even if you are among people all day long, you still feel out of tune with the team and society.
02Why do people feel lonely?
According to Adler, a lonely person is a person who is unable to establish cooperative relationships with others. So, if we want to find a good medicine against loneliness, we must first find the crux of loneliness. Why do people feel lonely?
In Adler's view, the root cause of all kinds of negative emotions that people have is a sense of inferiority. In other words, loneliness is caused by people's inferiority complex.
Here, we need to emphasize that everyone has inferiority complex and it is a very normal emotion.
We can understand inferiority complex in this way. It is a person's dissatisfaction with his own status. Just because we feel dissatisfied, we want to make up for our shortcomings and pursue a sense of superiority to surpass ourselves and achieve the ideal state.
For example, a child who is learning to talk will feel powerless after seeing the adults around him speaking freely, so he will have a sense of inferiority. This inferiority complex will drive him to pursue a sense of superiority and to Learn a language so you can communicate freely with those around you.
To give another example, social psychologist Eliot Aronson grew up under the aura of his older brother.
The elder brother is smart and cute, and is popular with the whole family, while Aronson seems stupid and dull. Even before his death, his father was worried that he would not achieve anything in the future.
Although in the presence of his brother, Aronson is very sensitive and has low self-esteem. But he used his inferiority complex as motivation, worked hard to pursue a sense of superiority, and wanted to become as good as his brother. In the end, he became a great social psychologist.
Furthermore, all civilizations develop on the basis of a sense of inferiority.
It is precisely because of human ignorance and full of expectations for the future that they strive to explore nature and the universe, and science is born and developed.
Therefore, we can draw a conclusion that every step taken by human beings is actually to overcome the sense of inferiority and the pursuit of superiority. The two complement each other and are the driving force for human beings to transcend themselves.
At this point, you may be confused again. Because it stands to reason that having an inferiority complex is not a bad thing, but can become a catalyst for growth and hard work. How can loneliness be related to it?
This is because a healthy sense of inferiority allows us to work hard, establish connections with others, seek help from others, and constantly pursue excellence.
But an overly strong sense of inferiority will make us go astray and produce an inferiority complex and a superiority complex. It is these two complexes that prevent us from establishing cooperative relationships with others, so we feel lonely.
The inferiority complex and the superiority complex are important concepts in Adler's individual psychology. Here is an explanation:
The inferiority complex is an abnormal psychological state. When a person faces a problem, he does not believe in his ability to solve it, so he has a self-defeating withdrawal reaction.
For example, Susan, a stuttering patient, believed that she could not find a good job because of her stuttering, so she gave up on herself and refused to find a job. This is a typical inferiority complex thinking.
Let’s analyze it. When Susan thought she had a stutter, she developed an inferiority complex.
People with a healthy sense of inferiority will try their best to make up for their shortcomings, such as curing their stuttering by practicing speaking hard, and working hard to accumulate the required work skills to prepare for finding a good job. .
On the contrary, Susan did not have the courage to change. She thought that if she went out to find a job, others would laugh at her stuttering, so she simply stopped looking for a job and stayed in her own narrow world. inside.
Eventually, Susan will become more and more afraid of contact with the outside world, and therefore will feel more and more lonely.
After explaining the inferiority complex, let’s take a look at what the superiority complex is.
The so-called superiority complex is also an abnormal psychological state. It refers to a person acting as if he is very powerful and thus immersed in a false sense of superiority to cover up his inner powerlessness and weakness. self-abasement.
For example, Susan, who stutters, has low self-esteem because of her stuttering. But she couldn't endure such an inferiority complex for a long time, nor could she accept such an incompetent self.
So, she hinted to herself, "If I didn't stutter, I would definitely be able to find a good job." Based on this, she mentally imagined a strong working woman without a stutter, and gained a sense of superiority from it.
However, in reality, Susan still did not change the status quo. She still did not dare to integrate into society and find a job. The sense of superiority she gained was false and she was only deceiving herself.
To give another example, in our lives, there is such a kind of person. They may have been poor when they were children, and they always felt inferior to others.
So, in order to make up for their inferiority complex, they will work hard to make money, no matter what means, as long as they can make money. And once they have money, their favorite thing to do is to show off.
For example, they will pursue all kinds of luxury goods and always wear various brand-name clothes.
They not only show off in real life, but also like to show off on the Internet, hoping that people all over the world will know that they are rich, so as to show that they are special existences.
Please note that a person who always wants to highlight his special identity will inevitably be unable to establish equal and cooperative relationships with others, and therefore will not be able to integrate into society amicably. Such a person will be lonely inside, but in fact he is not enough. Why.
From the above examples, we can see that although inferiority complex and superiority complex seem to be two opposite words, they are closely related.
People with an inferiority complex, because they cannot stand their own inferiority complex and their own incompetence, pretend to be strong by pursuing a false sense of superiority, thereby concealing their inner inferiority complex and powerlessness.
So, essentially, the superiority complex is an upgraded inferiority complex, a method used by people with an inferiority complex to avoid difficulties.
We emphasize again that these two complexes will cause people to be unable to truly integrate into society and establish cooperative relationships with others, so people will feel lonely.
So, you may want to ask, why are some people able to use their inferiority complex to transcend themselves, while some people close themselves off and become lonely people because of their inferiority complex? Here we need to learn a key word: social sense.
What is social sense? It refers to people's desire to build relationships and work together with other people.
Adler said that people are born with a sense of society. Because humans are not as strong as lions and orangutans, nor do they have the sufficient defense capabilities of other animals.
This characteristic determines that human beings must resist the cruel external environment through social cooperation and use the power of the group to make up for the shortcomings of their own strength.
Therefore, people with sufficient social sense will know how to pay attention to others, establish cooperative relationships with others, and when encountering difficulties, they can always solve them in a way that does not harm others' interests.
On the contrary, people who lack a sense of society cannot integrate into society and establish cooperative relationships with other people. They always focus on themselves and never pay attention to others. Such people will feel lonely, that is, Not surprising.
So, why do some people have sufficient social sense development while some people have insufficient social sense development. Adler believes that this is mainly related to the guidance of adults around him.
Cohen, the actor in the movie "Call Me Number One", suffers from congenital Tourette syndrome. This disease causes him to twist his neck uncontrollably and make strange noises like a barking dog.
Since childhood, Cohen was not understood by the people around him. His classmates laughed at the strange noises he made, and his teacher criticized him for deliberately disrupting class and defined him as a bad student.
Even his father was extremely disappointed in him and felt ashamed to have a son like him. His father eventually chose to divorce Cohen's mother.
Imagine what his future life will be like if no one guides him? There is no doubt that he will have low self-esteem because of this disease and will not want to interact with other people because he is worried about being laughed at.
Eventually, he will separate himself from the entire society. In his eyes, society will be ruthless and indifferent, and he will not be able to feel any warmth. How can he learn to cooperate with and connect with other people?
Fortunately, there are two noble people in Cohen's life. One is his mother and the other is his elementary school principal.
Cohen’s mother never gave up on him, and she always wanted him to truly integrate into society. She took Cohen to doctors and took her to support groups.
There are many people with the same disease as Cohen in the group, but the adults here cannot work, the children cannot go to school, and the entire group is full of an atmosphere of escaping from society.
Cohen’s mother did not want him to become a marginalized figure in society, so she took him away from the mutual aid group. Later, Cohen transferred to another school, and it was at this school that he met another noble person in his life, the principal of the school.
At a school concert, Cohen kept making strange noises while sitting in the audience. After the music ended, the principal called Cohen to the stage and told everyone that Cohen's strange noises were due to his illness, which was beyond his control.
The principal then asked him what others could do to help him.
Cohen was stunned for a while, because everyone had been laughing at him and treating him as a monster, but now someone was willing to help him. Cohen told everyone with some surprise that he hoped they wouldn't look at him differently.
After stepping down, Cohen still screamed strangely, but this time everyone was applauding him. For the first time, he felt that society was friendly to him.
This made him determined to become an excellent teacher like the principal when he grew up, to encourage more children who had the same predicament as him.
The guidance of Cohen’s mother and the encouragement of his elementary school principal gave Cohen a sufficient social sense.
Even after growing up, Cohen was frustrated in many interviews due to illness, but he still did not give up until he finally found a job as a teacher and began his journey of teaching and educating people.
Okay, we have finished talking about the reasons why people become lonely.
To summarize, the root cause of loneliness lies in low self-esteem and lack of social sense.
But everyone has inferiority complex. People with sufficient social sense can integrate into society and establish connections with others. Therefore, when they feel inferiority complex, they will use their inferiority complex as motivation to work hard and pursue superiority. Feeling and ultimately transcending oneself.
On the contrary, people who lack social sense always focus on themselves. When they feel inferior, they can easily go astray and develop inferiority complex and superiority complex.
These two complexes will make people unable to integrate into society and establish cooperative relationships with other people, so people will feel lonely.
03How to get out of loneliness?
So, how can we get out of loneliness?
The most fundamental way is to realize that what we need to change is our own goals. What does it mean? Adler believed that it is not his past experiences that determine a person's behavior, but his future goals.
For example, a student is very lazy in study and his grades are very poor. From our perspective, if we want to improve this student’s grades, we need to ask him to be more serious in class, listen to the class well, and work hard to improve. academic performance.
However, if we know that this student's goal is to stand out, then we will understand that as long as his goal remains the same, his habit of lazy study will not disappear.
So in Adler's view, everyone with psychological problems is actually in this situation. The behavior and method are correct, but the goal is wrong.
For example, a patient with social phobia will tremble all over and have heart palpitations whenever he goes to a place with a lot of people. For this reason, he has sought medical treatment many times, hoping to live a normal life.
But in Adler's view, this patient was not unable to interact with others because of his stuttering.
On the contrary, it was precisely because he did not want to interact with others that he created uneasy emotions and even had abnormal physiological reactions. In other words, he stuttered to avoid social activities.
As long as he stutters, he does not need to meet strangers. He can also use this excuse to refuse party invitations from colleagues, and his relatives and friends will treat him with caution because of his stuttering. .
It can be seen that to get out of loneliness, what we have to do is to realize that what needs to be changed is our own goals. As long as the goal changes, the psychological state and behavior will change accordingly.
So, you want to ask, what kind of goals are meaningful goals and worthy of our pursuit?
In Adler's view, as long as our goals can reflect a sufficient sense of society, they are meaningful goals. Under the guidance of such goals, our behavior will probably not deviate.
As for the meaning of life, Adler emphasized in his writings that the meaning of life lies in dedication. Only those who understand this can actively pay attention to others and establish cooperative relationships with others. The goal of superiority we seek should also lie in this.
For example, Monica is a good person in the workplace and responds to every colleague’s request.
Whether her colleagues ask her to help print documents, do PPT or other trivial tasks, she will always take over these tasks. To this end, she often works overtime to fulfill colleagues' requests.
However, she always felt out of tune with the people in the company, and there were no colleagues with whom she could talk, so she felt very lonely.
From Monica’s case, we can see that her goal is to “obtain the recognition of others”, so her actions are all centered around this goal.
Although she will complete the work for other colleagues, her behavior is not dedication, because her ultimate goal is for others to recognize her.
So if Monica wants to truly get out of loneliness, she must change her original goals and combine her new goals with a sense of society.
If you are in the same situation as Monica, then you can reset your goal to "dedicate your talents at work" and your behavior will change accordingly.
When you encounter difficulties, you can ask your colleagues for help, because you and other people are in a cooperative relationship and you no longer regard them as enemies;
When you are at work , you no longer only focus on whether you can be recognized by others, but whether others will benefit from your work.
For example, when you are doing PPT, you can consider what kind of PPT can better convey information and whether others can understand the logical structure of your PPT.
When you learn to cooperate with others at work and continue to demonstrate your self-worth, you will naturally be recognized by others.
For another example, An An doesn’t have many friends. Except during working hours, she spends all her time around her husband and children.
Once they are not around, An An will be very lonely. This is because her goal is "I don't want to deal with anyone else except my husband and children."
An An decided to re-set goals, such as "I want to deal with other people and establish cooperative relationships with others."
In order to achieve this goal, An An began to join book clubs to share the books she had read with others; she also joined many baby mother groups to exchange parenting experiences with others.
In short, the most fundamental way to get out of loneliness is for us to realize that what we need to change is our goals.
When we have this awareness, we can reset our goals, connect our goals with other people in society, cooperate with others, and contribute to others.
In this process, our actions can not only benefit others, but also develop ourselves.
Okay, that’s it for you in the book “Out of Loneliness”. I would like to summarize for you, we talked about three key points today:
First of all, we re-recognized loneliness. Doing something alone does not mean that you are lonely. Being truly lonely means that you cannot integrate into society and cannot establish cooperative relationships with other people.
Secondly, we understand the reason why people feel lonely, and the root cause is a sense of inferiority.
A normal level of inferiority complex can make people work hard and surpass themselves. But a strong sense of inferiority can give rise to an inferiority complex and a superiority complex.
Whether a person will take the path of self-transcendence or the path of loneliness due to a sense of inferiority depends on whether the person has a sufficient sense of society.
People with a strong social sense can actively integrate into society and establish cooperative relationships with other people; people who lack a social sense are self-conscious and cannot integrate well into society and connect with other people. .
Finally, we know that the way to get out of loneliness is to first realize that what we need to change is our goal. Secondly, we need to reset a goal that can reflect our adequate sense of society.
When you learn to connect well with other people and grow in your relationships with others, you can still live out your own value even if you are alone.
So, set a meaningful goal for yourself again and cooperate with others!