I used to let my past own me. Most of us do, Come on!
The mistakes, the failures, the heartbreaks —we carry them everywhere.
Like a heavy backpack, they weigh us down.
We tell ourselves,
I’m like this because of what happened to me.
It feels true.
But it’s just a story we are holding on to — a story that keeps us small.
When I read “The Courage to Be Disliked”, it punched me in the gut.
It forced me to ask:
> What if you’re not a victim of your past?
> What if you’re just using it as an excuse to stay safe?
I won’t sugarcoat it — it was brutal.
But, It Set Me Free.
Here are my takes:
- Your Past Is Not Holding You Back — You Are
There’s a scene that hit me like a slap.
A teenage boy says he’s afraid of going to school because he’s being bullied.
It sounds reasonable.
The trauma of bullying makes him anxious — it makes sense, right?
But the philosopher in the book flips the script:
“You aren’t afraid of school because you were bullied.”
“You are using the bullying as an excuse to avoid school.”
I was furious when I read that.
How dare they minimize someone’s pain? But the more I sat with it, the more it sank in.
Because I realized — I had done the same thing.
Years ago, I once had a senior who publicly belittled me at work. She even said, Shashwat can’t be an engineer, I believe.
It shook my confidence, made me question my worth, and left me feeling small.
For months afterward, I’d hold back in meetings.
I’d tell myself:
I’m quiet because of that experience. It scarred me.
But the book made me understand:
Was I really quiet because of her?
Or did I choose to stay quiet— and blamed her for it?
That realization wrecked me.
Because the truth was, she wasn’t holding me back — I was.
I just used her as a convenient reason to play small.
2. Your Problems Are Just Comparisons in Disguise
The book makes a claim that sounds offensive at first.
All problems are interpersonal relationship problems
But, what about financial struggles? Health issues? Loneliness?
Those are personal, right?
But then it clicks.
Most of our suffering is fueled by comparison
Examples? I love giving examples xD
- I wasn’t unhappy with my job — I was unhappy because someone my age was making more money.
- I didn’t feel insecure about my looks — I felt insecure when standing next to someone ‘better looking.
- I wasn’t discontent with my life — I was discontent when I scrolled through Instagram and saw how ‘perfect’ everyone else’s seemed.
Without comparison, *most of our problems would lose their sting*.
3. The Freedom of Being Disliked
When I was a teenager, I used to obsess over ‘being liked’.
I’d replay conversations in my head, wondering:
“Did I sound dumb?”
“Did they misinterpret that joke?”
“Do they think I’m annoying?”
Well, I was terrified of being disliked.
Then I read these line in my early 20s:
“It is not your task to be liked.”
“It is the other person’s task to decide how they feel.”
Which is also stated in this book, and I think I have already become better at this.
We spend years doing other people’s emotional labour, It’s like treating their opinions of us as our responsibility
But it’s not.
Our task is to be honest and authentic. And their task is how they respond.
And I have no right to interfere with their task :)
Stop people-pleasing.
Let go of the exhausting burden of trying to be likeable
And for the first time, feel free.
Easy three lines summary?
✅ Stop using your past as a shield
✅ Quit the comparison game
✅ Let go of needing approval
Have you read —
How A Single Line Of Python Code Broke Production ?
In case we are meeting for the first time, come over here, it’ll be worth the roller coaster of articles that are gonna come up in the next few weeks.
Use this to get to know more about me — https://linktr.ee/shashwat_writes