The Necessity of Struggle

Humans have never had it easier than they do today, by and large. Yet, for all the innovations that have made our lives simpler, safer, and better connected, more and more of us appear to lack contentment. Research shows , for example, that 29% of American adults report having received a diagnosis of depression at some point in their lives, a number that marks a ten-point increase in under a decade.?

This points to a reality that a growing number of voices have been shouting about in recent years; the necessity of struggle.

Pulling Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps

The best-known figure currently touting the benefits of a hard life is, of course, Jordan Peterson. The fiercely divisive Canadian psychology professor has insisted, over and over again, that difficulty is an essential part of a fulfilling existence.?

Peterson’s discussion of struggle is notable in that it’s frequently grounded in explicitly religious terms. In this video , he uses the story of Abraham to explain that humans are “built for struggle,” noting that the Biblical figure’s decision to do the work of God led him to encounter tyranny, famine, and enemies who attempt to steal his wife.?

More recently, psychology professor Eranda Jayawickreme discussed the concept on an episode of the Hidden Brain podcast, endorsing the idea that “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” which was initially proposed by Friedrich Nietzsche. During the discussion, Jayawickreme noted how central the ideas of resistance, struggle, and the overcoming of adversity are to all our stories, from religious fables to superhero movies.?

Christianity is more closely associated with suffering than other religions, but the theme of struggle arises in every major faith to a greater or lesser degree. In Buddhism, the concept of dukkha (meaning “suffering” in English) is considered a key tenet of the Buddha’s teachings. Of course, this suffering need not be physical pain; Buddhists understand dukkha to refer to the discomfort associated with the pursuit of pleasure and the knowledge of mortality. Buddhists aim to escape this via the enlightenment that comes through a lifetime of intentional meditative practice.?

The initial phase of this process involves purging the karma associated with the hell realms, a process so difficult that even the most dedicated of spiritual seekers fail to complete it. The “bad trips” associated with psychedelics are not dissimilar from this type of experience, but these drug-induced episodes are fleeting compared to real karmic cleansing.

This phase of enlightenment is often accompanied by existential shock. Individuals are left questioning the very nature of their own selves, and must find spiritual stability with Anatta, the realization of non-self.

So, suffering is an essential step on the path to enlightenment in the Eastern traditions as well.?

The Consequences of an Easy Life

“When life is too easy for us, we must beware or we may not be ready to meet the blows which sooner or later come to everyone, rich or poor.” - Eleanor Roosevelt.

The consequences of a lack of struggle exist on both a practical and a spiritual level. Practically speaking, spoiled child syndrome or “overindulgence ” is perhaps the most useful example of the negative effects of excessive ease. Experts agree that parents who make life too easy for their kids run the risk of creating chronically dependent adults who lack discipline and struggle to find happiness in life.?

On a deeper level, it’s incumbent upon us all to realize that suffering is inevitable. Accepting struggles into our lives graciously may help us to contend with this truth, and to approach it from a place of enlightenment. As Peterson puts it, the idea “isn’t that you can avoid catastrophe. It’s that you can prepare yourself to deal with it honorably when it arrives.”?

It’s worth noting that not all “struggle” is the same, and that some challenges are so great that their negative impact may outweigh their benefit. You should not take on challenges to the extent that they traumatize you, nor suggest to others that this type of struggle is to be celebrated. Many people do not have the luxury of choosing their own battles.?

Struggle in the Religion of Tomorrow

So, how do we reintroduce the idea of hardship to societies that are striving to leave it behind?

There’s little point suggesting that we should deliberately make life more difficult on a societal level. It would be impractical, and wildly unpopular, to try to reverse humanity’s progress in the fields of medicine, health science, transport, or communications. Some have suggested that we should try to halt progress by regulating the development of certain types of technology (such as AI ), but this seems improbable.?

Instead, what’s required is an attitudinal shift toward the idea of struggle. Many of us have come to understand challenge as something to be avoided at all costs, when we should be embracing it with open arms. We can’t re-engineer society to cause us more hardship, so we need to be ready to invite it into our lives personally.??

This is where religious practice may have a role to play. Seeking challenge for its own sake is, in some ways, contrary to human nature. People might easily stray from the path once it becomes convenient, or once their enthusiasm for struggle fades. Devotion could provide a default heuristic for people to use in this decision-making process; you would be less likely to talk yourself out of a difficult task in the moment if you had the support, structure, and guidance of religion to rely on. Taking the difficult path would become second nature.?

The pillar of “No Chaste ” is of crucial importance here; the insights to be gained from intentional practice will prepare us to deal with suffering in an open, constructive way, accepting its inevitability rather than striving to escape it.?

It should also be noted that the pursuit of struggle can become pathological, and severely destructive. If we instruct people simply to go out and pursue hardship without grounding this (potentially sensible) advice in a broader framework of moral values, disaster could result.?

There are also points at which the pursuit of “post-traumatic growth” simply stops being productive. In the Hidden Brain podcast episode referenced above, Eranda Jayawickreme muses that the embrace of the “superhero trope” in Western cultures may lead people to interpret distressing experiences as productive, when this may not necessarily be the case. He points out that, in some instances, this perception may even do more harm than good, referring to a study in which war veterans who saw their suffering as growth-inducing were more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder than those who didn’t.?

With all this in mind, then, it is clear that we need a properly outlined path to meaningful suffering. Religion can show us how to embrace sacrifice in the pursuit of spiritual development and other worthy goals.