What doesn't kill you

Do bad experiences make us better people?

A while ago, I received a letter in response to an article that I wrote in the Wall Street Journal. The article was based on my book, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning, and it summarized my argument that the right sort of suffering can be a great source of pleasure and satisfaction.

The letter-writer was pissed. She described in detail how she was plagued with chronic pain. Her life was awful. How dare I say that her suffering was of value?

I wrote her back. I expressed my sympathy but said she was getting me wrong. My book and my article were about the benefits of certain sorts of chosen suffering, like BDSM or training for a marathon. It wasn’t about the miserable experiences that are unchosen, like losing your home to a tsunami, the death of a child, being tortured, spending years in a concentration camp—or chronic pain.

To be fair to the letter-writer, though, a lot of people do make the argument she was responding to. They think unchosen suffering is good for you. They believe in what’s been called “altruism born out of suffering.” They talk about post-traumatic growth and endorse the aphorism by Friedrich Nietzsche—”What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

Are they right?

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