How to be happy though human / by W. Béran Wolfe.
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Negative Patterns of Life When we have eliminated the above easily recognized indices of the existence of the inferiority complex we may still detect its presence in certain characteristic life-patterns which in their entirety reveal the absence of a courageous affirmation of life. The commonest of these negative, hesitating, or actively unsocial patterns is the neurosis. The neurosis is not a disease—it is a cowardly attitude toward the problems of life. The neurosis frequently expresses itself in painful symptoms. The common denominator of every neurosis, no matter how bizarre its structure, is the factor of social irresponsibility. A neurosis is a pattern of life in which painful alibis are substituted for the performance of the ordinary tasks and obligations of life which appear fantastically difficult to the mis-educated neurotic. The fiction “ I cannot ” is substituted for the admission “ I will not ” in every case. The shibboleth of the neurosis may be detected in such neurotic phrases as “ I would marry, but for . . . ” or “ I would have made a success of my job, if . . . ” or “ I would go out in society, but . . .” and the like. In the life pattern we call crime, the individual, for lack of proper initiation into the fellowship of mankind, feels himself a stranger in a hostile country. He misinterprets the realities of life as personal insults, and in consequence is aggressive against a society which he cannot understand, aggression against society, or its champions, the ; and the courts, seems thoroughly justifiable to the criminal who has complete faith in his first premise that society has banded together in an offensive alliance against him. Punishment does not deter the criminal—- it corroborates his belief that he is justified in using trickery, malice, stealth, against the hated individuals who are “ in ”. Here again a basic sense of inferiority and the inability to meet the demands of social life compel the criminal to make a short cut to power and security. Alcoholism and drug addiction are the life-patterns of those discouraged individuals who escape into the