How Changing Your Lifestyle Can Lead to True Happiness: Insights from Adler

Why Change Your Lifestyle? Some people believe that the way we perceive ourselves and the world varies from person to person, but when they embark on the journey to happiness, they cannot simply change their lifestyle at will. As mentioned earlier, those who desire happiness often make mistakes in choosing the means to achieve it. We should not attribute our unhappiness to our lifestyle because it is something we choose for ourselves. I will now summarize Adler's discourse on happiness and lifestyle as follows: Life is not complicated, we complicate it ourselves, making it difficult to live happily; if we change the "definition" of life (lifestyle), the world becomes incredibly simple. "The world is extremely simple" comes from Dia·Jiha. She once worked with Adler in Vienna (I am deeply impressed by the following anecdote and have also quoted it in my book "Introduction to Adlerian Psychology"). Jiha spent three days reading Adler's book "On Neurotic Character." "Although the weather was unbearably hot, I felt very happy when I was alone. I read Adler's book three times from beginning to end. On Tuesday morning, when I stood up from the chair, I found that the whole world had changed... Adler made me understand that the world is incredibly simple." "Definition" means how we perceive life, the world, and ourselves. Different people may assign different meanings to the same experience. Some people only see suffering in it, while others learn valuable lessons from suffering; some people think that everyone around them has ill intentions, while others feel protected by the people around them. In short, there are countless ways to define things, with each person having their own. Some people associate the issue of happiness with this and believe that the "key to happiness lies in mindset," but this is incorrect. Adler did not believe that a painful life could become easy and happy simply by changing one's mindset. If happiness could be attained through mindset alone, then happiness would be unrelated to reality. If you subjectively feel happy, then you are happy, and you may even feel happy just because others consider you happy. However, the taste of food includes sour, sweet, bitter, and spicy flavors. Even though everyone's taste perception may differ, the texture does not differ much. But when it comes to whether a certain food is beneficial or harmful to the body, it cannot be subjectively determined. Happiness is the same; it is meaningless for others to consider you happy. The meaning of life lies in the actual happiness you acquire. If you change your definition of the world and yourself, your way of interacting with the world and your behavior will also change. How to gain happiness by changing definitions and the changes it brings to your relationship with the world and others will be discussed further in the following text. Lifestyle gives meaning to life. If what Adler said is true, that we form our lifestyle at the age of four or five, then someone will certainly question, "At such a young age, our language expression abilities have not fully developed. Even if we chose a lifestyle at that time, do we still need to be responsible for our choices?" But Adler said that if you "now" understand your lifestyle, then you are responsible for what you do "afterwards." In "Superiority and Social Interest," he wrote, "Whether one can successfully persuade a person to cooperate in correcting (lifestyle) mistakes, and whether he can make up his mind to do so, are entirely up to him." This sentence is the signpost for us to embark on the path to happiness.