67 pages • 2-hour read
The Courage to be Happy: Discover the Power of Positive Psychology and Choose Happiness Every Day
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Discussion Questions
General Impressions
Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.
1. If you’ve read The Courage to Be Disliked, how did The Courage to Be Happy compare? If you haven’t read Koga and Kishimi’s prior work, are you interested in doing so?
2. How does The Courage to Be Happy compare to other works of personal development—for example, Mel Robbins’s The Let Them Theory? Did you find this text more or less compelling than others in the genre?
3. Which Adlerian principles laid out in The Courage to Be Happy are most accessible to you? Are these principles more applicable to your personal growth or to your relationships?
Personal Reflection and Connection
Encourage readers to reflect on how the book relates to their own life or work and how its lessons could help them.
1. The text frames happiness as a choice. How does this framing challenge or reinforce your current understanding of happiness? Do you find it a useful conceptualization?
2. Kishimi and Koga uphold Adler’s notion that love is the key to a balanced life. When has love offered you stability and security? Have some kinds of love been more grounding than others?
3. The text argues that education can only happen outside a system of reward and punishment. Does this resonate with your own experiences of learning? What do you see as the ultimate purpose of education, and how could detaching education from rewards and punishments facilitate that goal?
4. Explore your own sense of “community feeling.” In what ways do you feel oriented toward or away from connection to others? What do you see as your social role(s)?
Real-World Relevance
Prompt readers to explore how the book fits into today’s professional or social landscape.
1. Explore the relevance of Adler’s notion of the “division of labor” to contemporary society. To what extent does this framework challenge or reinforce the status quo, particularly where hierarchical relationships are concerned?
2. Adlerian psychology posits that anger is a form of violence. Explore this notion in the context of contemporary social politics. How do you see anger facilitating violence? Conversely, is anger ever a constructive force?
Practical Applications
Encourage readers to share and consider how the book’s lessons could be applied to their personal/professional lives.
1. Apply Adler’s philosophies of love and empathy to your home and family life. If love is a life task, what steps can you and your loved ones take to show more empathy toward and to extend understanding to one another? What would be the result?
2. In your work life, how might Adler’s principles of respect, kindness, and self-reliance alter your vocational environment? What role do you play in the workplace, and how would this role evolve if you were treated differently (or if you treated others differently)?
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