Belonging: The Fairytale

People mock Adler’s approach as “fairytale.”

As if the idea that humans need community is naïve — like it is the emotional equivalent of believing in woodland creatures delivering your mail.

I disagree.

Adler is not fairytale. Adler is inconvenient.

Because his central idea does not flatter our modern obsession with the individual.

He did not say the cure for suffering is more self-focus.

He said something far more radical: The healthiest people are the ones who feel they belong — and who contribute to something beyond themselves.

Not as martyrs. Not as doormats. Not as unpaid emotional staff.

As human beings who are part of the fabric.

And yes, I know: “belonging” is a word people have used to manipulate others. Especially neurodivergent people. Especially women. Especially caretakers. Especially the ones who learned early that love is conditional.

But Adler was not talking about obedience.

He was talking about community feeling — the understanding that we are not isolated egos floating through life like lone satellites.

We are ecosystems.

Everyone knows the self-care phrase: You cannot pour from an empty cup.

Correct. You cannot. If you are empty, you need rest. You need food. You need safety. You need help. You need to stop pretending you can run on fumes.

But there is another truth that does not get posted on Instagram because it is not aesthetic: If all you do is fill your own cup… you overflow.

Overflow does not feel like wellness.

Overflow feels like restlessness, irritability, meaninglessness, compulsive distraction, doom-scrolling, consumption that never satisfies and an existential itch you cannot scratch.

Because humans do not just need intake. We need outflow. Not self-erasure.

Contribution.

Being useful is not the same as being used.

Many of us — especially those who grew up in chaos — learned that usefulness was a trap.

If you are good at something, people start extracting. If you are competent, people start assigning you roles. If you are resilient, people stop checking if you are okay.

So “community” can sound like just another word for servitude. But Adler is not advocating exploitation.

He is pointing toward something very specific: being used makes you smaller but being needed makes you more yourself.

There is a difference between: someone dumping their mess in your lap and you choosing to show up where it matters.

There is also a difference between: being a function and being a person who contributes.

Service without consent is exploitation. Service with consent is meaning.

A lot of modern suffering is loneliness in disguise.

Many people are not miserable because their life is objectively terrible. They are miserable because they are alone inside it.

Modern life trains us to treat our needs like personal problems and our success like personal virtue. It trains us to self-optimise endlessly, like we are machines.

Humans are not built for that.

We are built for: shared effort, shared burdens, shared joy and interdependence.

And when that is missing, people try to replace it with: identity performance, consumerism, hustle, “finding yourself” and constant self-analysis.

But you cannot “find yourself” in isolation. You find yourself through relationship.Through function in a group. Through being part of something real.

Community feeling is the antidote — not because it is cute, but because it is true. Adler’s community feeling is not a Hallmark slogan.

It is a psychological reality: When people feel connected and useful, they cope better.

They ruminate less.
They feel less existential dread.
They recover faster.
They become less brittle.

Not because life gets easier. But because life gets shared.

So no, Adler is not fairytale. Not like being a social media superstar or a trophy wife. 

Adler is what happens when you stop pretending humans are meant to do everything alone.

Community feeling is the antidote.

Not to make you “nice.” To make you whole.