Hey friends,

This week I want to give you an excerpt from the Book "The Courage to be Disliked" about Seperating tasks. I found it very insightful.

This week I was reading a book and I came across an excellent insight about how we should separate our tasks I’ll give an example from the book.

PHILOSOPHER: Say there’s a child who has a hard time studying. He doesn’t pay attention in class, doesn’t do his homework, and even leaves his books at school. Now, what would you do if you were his father?

YOUTH: Well, of course, I would try everything I could think of to get him to apply himself. I’d hire tutors and make him go to a study centre, even if I had to pull him by the ear to get him there. I’d say that’s a parent’s duty. And that’s actually how I was raised myself. I wasn’t allowed to eat dinner until the day’s homework was done.

PHILOSOPHER: Then, let me ask another question. Did you learn to enjoy studying as a result of being made to do it in such a heavy-handed manner?

YOUTH: Unfortunately, I did not. I just took care of my studies for school and for exams in a routine way.

PHILOSOPHER: I see. All right, I will talk about this from the basic stance of Adlerian psychology. When one is confronted with the task of studying, for instance, in Adlerian psychology we consider it from the perspective of ‘whose task is this?’

YOUTH: Whose task?

PHILOSOPHER: Whether the child studies or not. Whether he goes out and plays with his friends, or not. Essentially this is the child’s task, not the parent’s task.

YOUTH: Do you mean that it is something the child is supposed to do?

PHILOSOPHER: Simply put, yes. There would be no point if the parents studied instead of the child, would there?

YOUTH: Well, no, there wouldn’t.

PHILOSOPHER: Studying is the child’s task. A parent’s handling of that by commanding the child to study is, in effect, an act of intruding on another person’s task. One is unlikely to avert a collision in this way. We need to think with the perspective of ‘whose task is this?’ and continually separate one’s own tasks from other people’s tasks.

YOUTH: How does one go about separating them?

PHILOSOPHER: One does not intrude on other people’s tasks. That’s all.

YOUTH: That’s all?

PHILOSOPHER: In general, all interpersonal relationship troubles are caused by intruding on other people’s tasks, or having one’s own tasks intruded on. Carrying out the separation of tasks is enough to change one’s interpersonal relationship problems dramatically.

Have a great week!

Conor

P.S Due to being very bored with COVID-19 I decided to sell a notion template to help track subscriptions (as that is something very relevant to me). If you are interested you can find it here

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❤️ My (Least) Favourite Things This Week

1. COVID-19 - This day last I tested positive for COVID. The first few days were not good but once I recovered it was a nice break from school. Unfortunately my isolation period has ended.

✍️ Quote of The Week

"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."