The Value of Hardship and How to Triumph in Life
Nietzsche’s big ideas will change your life and work
Life is difficult, intimidating, and fatal. Hardship can floor us to the point of destruction.
But, then again, hardship can also enrich us to the point of enlightenment.
Those who go out of their way seek out challenge, hardship, and suffering tap into something special. Do it long enough and the act becomes transcendent. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) believed in doing away with an easy life. Shoulder burdens voluntarily.
Seeking challenge, Nietzsche said, is the path to fulfilment and even uniqueness.
“Any human being who does not wish to be part of the masses need only stop making things easy for himself,” he wrote.
Welcoming suffering and seeking challenge, according to Nietzsche, is the way forward for those seeking something beyond mere existence.
In his book, The Gay Science, the German philosopher presents this in the form of a question:
“What if pleasure and displeasure were so tied together that whoever wanted to have as much as possible of one must also have as much as possible of the other — that whoever wanted to learn to ‘jubilate up to the heavens’ would also have to be prepared for ‘depression unto death’?”
Nietzsche seemed convinced that a meaningful existence is built upon this paradoxical, inverse relationship between suffering and fulfillment. He continues:
“You have the choice: either as little displeasure as possible, painlessness in brief … or as much displeasure as possible as the price for the growth of an abundance of subtle pleasures and joys that have rarely been relished yet? If you decide for the former and desire to diminish and lower the level of human pain, you also have to diminish and lower the level of their capacity for joy.”
The very launchpad to fulfillment, based on these old philosophical musings, is not only the seeking of, but a devotion to, a hard life.
But this line of thinking shouldn’t be misconstrued as defeatist or nihilistic. Instead, it can be framed as a philosophy of courage; a willingness to embrace challenge as a means to personal growth.
This type of action can signal to others that you do not run from things but instead tackle them forthrightly. You’re here to carry a load and, despite fear or uncertainty, take action anyway.
Seeking out challenge is also another way of acting out your own fate. It puts you square in the driver’s seat rather than shotgun. Herman Hesse (1877–1962), a German-Swiss Nobel laureate and philosopher who was inspired by much of Nietzsche’s work, wrote extensively on the responsibility of finding burdens to bear.
In a world that pressures each of us to be as similar to those around us as possible (think: social media and influencers), Hesse wants us to position ourselves facing the opposite direction. Not to exclude yourself from the “mainstream,” per se, but to cease striving to be indistinguishable from other people. Hesse writes:
“You must unlearn the habit of being someone else or nothing at all, of imitating the voices of others and mistaking the faces of others for your own.”
There are two philosophies at play here. One, as initially stated, is the willingness to seek challenge and difficulty. Embracing rather than abdicating or avoiding burden is necessary, and makes you better for it.
The second is the importance of solitude and reflection, which Hesse wrote about extensively. According to both him and Nietzsche, these two paths work hand in hand, integral pieces to a meaningful life. Both are necessary in finding oneself.
Solitude allows for reflection, and reflection gives you the chance to take stock of your own life. Then you can pose the tough questions to yourself: What are you running from? What should you run toward? Is your path coming from an inner voice or an outer influence?
Being yourself and only yourself — rather than being a copy of someone else — is what E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) described as “the hardest battle which any human being can fight,” (as highlighted by Maria Popova). Solitude facilitates the necessary quiet time to consider whether or not you are in the fight.
Cummings lived in defiance of the status quo, not as a counter-cultural writer but as one who was stubbornly set in his ways, no matter what culture said of him. An avant-garde poet and wordsmith, he likely would have disavowed this age of internet culture and online gibberish.
Social media, in particular, I think, would have irked Cummings because it seems to above all promote group-think and shun individuality.
What’s more, if Cummings were a 2021 citizen, it seems likely that he would critique the constant chatter that internet culture invites. A landscape where everyone feels obligated to opine and a place that is absolutely counter to stillness.
Here I am, a voice on the internet, writing against the too-many voices of the internet. The irony of this does not go unnoticed. But writing today, I’d like to think, is a very minor intellectual challenge I’ve chosen to tackle, forthrightly, in the spirit of Nietzsche and Hesse.
Nietzsche popularized the Latin phrase, Amor fati, which loosely translates to a love of one’s fate. He believed you must not only embrace but love your lot in life, the good and the bad, and see it as necessary. Paired with this is his notion of “eternal recurrence” — the idea that everything recurs infinitely.
From this he posited one must be able to live each event and every suffering in their life over and over forever, if necessary. That structure, if true, demands you love your fate because it is the best hand you can play.
I’ll leave you with the same two questions I leave myself with. What challenge will you seek today? Would you be willing to do it over and over and over again?
