Friedrich Nietzsche breaks down the value of hardship and living life on your own terms

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 to seek challenge and hardship 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.

Willingly seeking challenge, Nietzsche said, is the path to fulfillment 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.

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 was convinced a meaningful existence hinges upon the relationship between suffering and fulfillment.

“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, challenge. 

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 thinking signals 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 drew from 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 urged people to position themselves otherwise.

“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,” Hesse said.

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. According to both Hesse and Nietzsche, these two paths work hand in hand, and are integral to a meaningful life.

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 — 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.” 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 would have irked Cummings because it promotes group-think and shuns individuality.

If Cummings were alive today, it seems likely that he’d critique the constant chatter internet culture invites. A landscape where everyone feels obligated to opine is one absolutely counter to stillness.  

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?

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