Re: Life / your strange will for pain
the fake dichotomy of growth and suffering
Lately, the world has convinced itself that ambition equals pain.
I’m not sure exactly when this began. I just recall that, all of a sudden, everyone everywhere started glorifying their pain. It seems that hordes of people online are now flashing sleeplessness and slavish workdays like high-fashion—as if having some grand, planetary mission magically justifies self-abuse1.
I’m not sure where this came from, but it has infiltrated us completely. It’s now hard to listen or speak about anyone’s dreams without the idea bubbling up unwittingly. This gambit of pain and gain—the notion that we must sacrifice happiness to feel valued—is now pervasive2.
Perhaps I’m being selfish, but I’ve never understood this. In fact, I’d take it a step further and question if the tradeoff even exists.
Is everyone ultimately forced to choose between ambition or fun? What if your life could be ambitious AND fun?
In any case, I think the popular outlook is false and unhealthy.
First: There are 24 hours in a day. Even with a day job, family, and enough breathing room to sleep and laugh and be human, most of us still have several hours left to chisel our dreams into shape3. The time is certainly there—it’s just too scattered to be useful, or vanishes when we say yes to too many things4. So when we claim that our dreams force us to neglect the rest of life, we’re really pointing to poor prioritization. With tighter intentions and habits, you can work miracles with the same day.
Second: You risk wasting your energy. When you conflate success with pain, you’ll end up believing that your journey must be difficult. Often, this means you’ll ignore the shortest path to your destination because it’s too easy (“this feels like cheating!”). In reality, there’s no glory in breaking your back where a finger would suffice. Reaching your goals with the least movement isn’t cheating—it’s a mark of elegance.
Third: Fun is an eternal choice. If it were in your control, would you carry out your life’s work in joy or despair? The catch, of course, is that you’re always in control. History’s most celebrated humans weren’t born masters. They loved their craft so profoundly that pain itself became small. Fortunately, this mindset is accessible to every human on the planet. With trained eyes, there is infinite beauty to be found in any craft. With deliberate practice, everything can become a game—life itself can become play.
In short, I think the binary of growth and suffering is fake.
We can transcend this tradeoff.
There’s no glory in pain for its own sake. There is only room for glory in our response.
From birth, we’re destined to the same fate: to live, to stumble, to confront our own universe of problems.
When we accept problems as a rule, we can learn to savor the game of life. We can learn to walk into pain without seeking it.
This is our highest potential. As humans, we can (and should) strive to grow happily.
Some day, you will revisit your life—not through its outcomes, but through its moments. When this day comes, I hope you’ll smile at your moments, too.
Yours truly,
Aaryan
Footnotes
See this first-person piece from Andrew Filev in Fortune
In the words of David Foster Wallace, this belief has become our water. It has settled so deeply into our consciousness that it becomes invisible.
Of course, there are exceptional cases where people are obliged to work three jobs to fulfill their basic needs. That said, the people I’m referring to don’t tend to be in this position. (If you don’t believe me, try drafting a spreadsheet of your daily activities and how long they take. I guarantee you’ll end up with spare hours!)
As one of my first mentors, Ian Lockhart, once wrote: saying no gives you the flexibility to say yes.