Don’t Elevate Suffering
We should draw inspiration from effort and achievement, whether painful or not
In the 2014 film Whiplash, the main character, a young music conservatory student named Andrew, dreams of becoming a great jazz musician. To achieve this goal, he is willing to discipline himself to extreme degrees, to endure exhaustion and physical pain — including verbal and emotional abuse from his mentor — and to isolate himself from those who love him. The film presents a view many people find compelling: the idea that achieving greatness requires suffering. Other films such as Black Swan and Raging Bull echo similar themes.
This view has important philosophic expressions as well. The nineteenth-century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is the most consistent advocate of this view:
What really arouses indignation against suffering is not suffering as such but the senselessness of suffering. . . . The discipline of great suffering — do you not know that it is this discipline alone that has created every elevation of mankind hitherto?1
Nietzsche focused on figures (particularly artists and intellectuals) like Socrates, Michelangelo, and Beethoven, who endured anguish, isolation, or physical ailments to become great. Today, people with this view will point to figures such as Stephen Hawking, Frederick Douglass, or Oprah Winfrey as having achieved greatness by overcoming suffering.
These individuals are indeed great. But the view that their greatness required suffering is toxic, because it distorts how people think about the inspiration we can take from the lives of great people. By focusing on their suffering instead of their actual achievements, this view can lead us to assume that if we want to achieve anything in our own lives, we must suffer. But this ignores how individuals are often driven by joy and love rather than by their suffering.
Andrew, the protagonist of Whiplash, is a case in point: for him, it’s obvious that being a great jazz drummer will require suffering. So when he encounters an abusive and hostile teacher or when he experiences the loss of his romantic relationship, he sees these as signs of success.
But this is a false view of greatness. Some great individuals have suffered and overcome their suffering, but that experience is not required for greatness. And when we find great individuals who haven’t suffered, this in no way diminishes their achievements.
Overcoming Suffering as an Achievement
To achieve something great is to achieve something extraordinary or significantly valuable. Frederick Douglass was great because he rose from his beginnings as a slave to become the greatest abolitionist of the nineteenth century, combining a mastery of rhetoric and powerful advocacy of the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Oprah Winfrey is great because of her bold entrepreneurship and success in breaking barriers through dialogues on abuse and emotional intimacy. Stephen Hawking was great because of his revolutionary work in physics.
Suffering is the experience of prolonged and deep physical and/or emotional pain. Such pain can have many sources, whether it’s the prolonged physical pain of injury or exhaustion, or the emotional pain of loss, fear, anxiety, or trauma. Clearly, not all pain is suffering, since pain is often limited or temporary in nature. Suffering is also not the same as effort — since not all effort is inherently painful; instead, suffering is something that we undergo rather than something that we actively do.
People sometimes speak as though there’s something about suffering itself that causes greatness. A widely shared quotation attributed (usually without reference) to Nietzsche is an example: “Suffering is the means by which we shape ourselves into greatness.” (There are moments, as in the earlier quoted passage and elsewhere, where he comes close to expressing just this idea.2 )
But no one could seriously think this is literally true: obviously, suffering itself, just the deep wrenching pain that tears you down, doesn’t cause greatness. And to think that it does fails to appreciate what is genuinely worth celebrating about the lives of great individuals. If pressed to clarify what they really mean, they’re likely to explain how overcoming suffering is itself an achievement. This is what makes the idea that greatness requires suffering plausible.
For instance, consider Frederick Douglass. It’s certainly true that Frederick Douglass’s particular greatness is inseparable from his incredible achievement in overcoming slavery: not only self-educating himself while enslaved, but in using his own story as a powerful moral component and illustrative example of his abolitionist message. The essence of his achievement is not the mere fact that he suffered but his achievement in the context of overcoming the suffering. If that’s so, then there are achievements that involve overcoming obstacles other than suffering, such as resolving difficult scientific questions, devising a new technology, or starting a new business to solve previously unsolved problems.
Oprah Winfrey is often thought of as great because of her resilience in overcoming an extremely challenging childhood. She was raised by a single mother in Mississippi, where, in fact, she was forced to endure the systematic and humiliating racism of segregation. Oprah and her mother moved to Milwaukee, where they continued to live in crushing poverty, and where she endured sexual abuse from family members for years. Even when she escaped poverty and began to work in television, she was criticized or denied opportunities explicitly based on her race.
Surviving these experiences without a sense of bitterness and achieving a life of normalcy is certainly admirable. But to think that this is all that makes Oprah great is to miss what truly sets her apart from others: her entrepreneurship and talent in communication. Her conversational and empathic style of interview revolutionized how people think about talk shows and radically de-stigmatized topics such as depression and abuse. Moreover, because she owned her show through her production company, she was able to create a powerful brand and produce TV shows, films, and magazines. Could Oprah have achieved such success without her background? That’s harder to say than it is about Douglass. But further to the point is that the essence of her achievement is something other than suffering.
Another great individual who undoubtedly suffered enormously was the brilliant physicist Stephen Hawking. In his 20s, Hawking was diagnosed with ALS (a neurodegenerative disease that disables nearly all muscle control) and told he would never recover. By any reasonable standard, this imposed significant and unavoidable suffering on Hawking for the rest of his life.
But Hawking’s choice to live despite his terrible condition is far from the only thing that made him great. He focused not on his condition but dedicated himself to his preexisting love for physics. Hawking once wrote, “[m]y advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with.”3 Hawking used his capacities to think, teach, read, and converse (using computer-assisted communication) to pursue deep and rewarding values and so to enjoy his life. His achievements, such as his work on black holes, came from his dedication to and love of physics, as well as his remarkable genius, not from his suffering. If Hawking had never developed ALS, it’s hard to know whether he would have been less or more dedicated or ambitious in his work in physics. On the one hand, without ALS, he might not have been as motivated to make the most of his life. On the other, without the disease, it might have been easier for him to do even more theoretical work given fewer physical restrictions. Either way, the essence of his achievement involved feats of abstraction about the cosmos, and not dwelling on debilitating physical condition.
Many people suffer tremendously without achieving greatness. Tens of thousands of slaves escaped Southern plantations in the nineteenth century but the vast majority lived otherwise unremarkable lives. Tragically, more than 400,000 people are the victims of sexual assault each year — this doesn’t somehow make them more capable of the kind of greatness Oprah has achieved. About 200,000 people in the world have tragically been diagnosed with ALS, but the vast majority of them are ordinary people. The suffering endured by great individuals like Douglass, Oprah, and Hawking should, of course, not be ignored. But what really made them great was the choices they made to overcome their suffering and to go well beyond it.
Sacrifice vs. Greatness
The idea that greatness involves sacrifice also makes it plausible that greatness requires suffering. Since greatness is thought to require sacrifice, and sacrifice entails loss of some value and therefore sometimes great pain, greatness and suffering are thought of as being linked.
But there is a fundamental difference between making a sacrifice and paying a cost. A cost is a payment (in literal monetary terms, or in time or energy) made in the pursuit of a goal that furthers one’s happiness. Truly great achievements do require paying great costs with the expectation that they are the necessary means to one’s ends. By contrast, a sacrifice is paying a cost without expectation of personal gain, or with a conscious net loss to one’s happiness or well-being.
For instance, Oprah’s mother wanted her to find a job that was “practical” and “stable,” not something public or in media. It would have been a sacrifice for Oprah to accede to her mother and give up on a career in media, denying herself the career that she wanted in order to satisfy her mother. But that’s exactly what she didn’t do. Instead, she worked hard to develop an entrepreneurial approach to broadcast communication that would deliver a rewarding career in a field she loved. Oprah obviously profited enormously from her efforts, becoming one of the wealthiest women in the world and cultivating a lifestyle that she loves. Parallel costs — and profits — can be found in the lives of Douglass and Hawking.
Great achievements require enormous costs (in time, energy, and resources) but they do not require sacrifice. (Arguably, they preclude it: you cannot achieve something truly great if you are consciously willing to tolerate loss.) Without the view that great achievements require net loss or sacrifice, it’s hard to see why suffering would be necessary for greatness. Great achievements don’t require sacrifice, and great individuals can be motivated by love and joy, rather than suffering. And what is inspiring about great achievements, instead of self-denial, is primarily how they dramatize qualities such as creativity, justice, and courage.
Greatness Without Suffering
It’s telling that people often assume that where greatness or inspiration appears, suffering must be behind it. In a pithy response to an interviewer who suggested that the suffering of Black Americans made them better musicians, the great jazz trumpeter Miles Davis responded: “listen: my father’s rich, my mama’s good-looking, right? and I can play the blues. . . . I’ve never suffered.”4 Davis, who grew up with a middle-class background and had a prestigious musical education clearly felt that the idea that traditionally black music like jazz and blues is great because of suffering is nonsense. Davis’s response not only highlights the truth that many individuals have lived great lives without significant periods of suffering, but that it’s misguided to think that a great individual must have suffered.
Consider also the life of Steph Curry, one of the most successful basketball players of all time. He experienced a loving childhood and stable family background throughout his life that provided him with emotional and financial support while he played basketball in high school and college. In short, we have no reason to think that Curry experienced any significant suffering. The love and support he experienced from his family and friends fueled him, alongside his incredible sense of discipline and dedication, on his way to becoming a world-class athlete.
Of course, just because Curry didn’t suffer, doesn’t mean that he “had it easy” or never put in serious or ambitious effort. Nor does it diminish his incredible skill in shooting, which continues to inspire people around the world. Curry’s success came not through suffering (which he did not experience), but through passion and a sense of love for the game, whether during his countless hours of practice, during games, or in time spent mentoring his younger teammates. As he puts it, “the process is the most fun, . . . the process and what you dive into on a daily basis and the nuances of mastering what you’re doing, there’s definitely points of feedback that make you smile.”5 And for Steph, this is directly connected to his success: “when I’m out there, for me to be successful, I’ve got to play a certain way . . . the heartbeat, the very soul of it, is joy. I’ve always had a joyous disposition. . . . I just enjoy it.”6
As Curry’s life shows, it’s often joy that drives people to greatness.
Steve Jobs was another great individual who found success through joy and passion, rather than suffering. While it’s true that Jobs suffered at the end of his life due to cancer, this was a later development that came well after his iconic achievements. He grew up in a comfortable middle-class home and had a lot of time to explore hobbies and interests, such as computers. He went on to become one of the most innovative and relentlessly ambitious entrepreneurs of all time, and his ideas utterly changed how we think about personal computers, digital media, phones, and tablets. He did all of this while promoting a unique design esthetic that became globally iconic.
As with Curry, the fact that Jobs didn’t suffer for his achievements doesn’t mean his achievements came easily to him. His journey was one about discovering what he loved and using his passion to reach greatness. Indeed, his journey was a process of continual experimentation and self-discovery about how to sell computers and create an iconic brand. During his first years at Apple, though, Jobs found it difficult to work alongside other people. Ultimately, he had so many conflicts and interpersonal issues that Apple fired him in the mid-1980s. Realizing he needed to grow, Jobs founded his own company (NeXT), from which he gained invaluable lessons about his own purpose. What ultimately made him a success was learning that good collaboration doesn’t have to involve conflict with others but does require inspiring them to bring out their best qualities. He further realized that he could do this best by channeling more of his energy and time into design. Accordingly, Jobs started to focus all his attention on what he loved most and brought him joy: creating personal computer products that were minimalistic and intuitive to use.7 By following his joy, he created one of the most successful and iconic brands of all time.
Jobs’s remarkable comeback story, which we should all take inspiration from, isn’t about suffering or overcoming it. It’s actually about Jobs’s focus on what he loved and doing what he did best, as he summarized:
You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.8
As Jobs’s life shows us, you can be truly great at something only if you love doing it. So if you want to be great at designing computer products, for example, you need to find those aspects that you love and that bring you joy, which is what he did.
The view that greatness requires suffering doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. In reality, what Andrew’s character from Whiplash portrays is a tragically false view: not only is Andrew’s self-denial and pain unnecessary, but his view actually holds him back and serves as an enabling mechanism for his abusive mentor. Andrew’s dedication and willingness to invest enormous time and effort in his craft are necessary to achieve greatness, but his self-destructiveness and embracing of pain are not.
This is important because in life it’s noble and admirable to want to emulate great individuals and pursue our highest potential. What we should seek to emulate and celebrate are the patience and passionate dedication of a Frederick Douglass, the perseverance of an Oprah Winfrey, the dedication of a Stephen Hawking, the relentless joyful drive of a Steph Curry, or the innovativeness of a Steve Jobs — not what suffering they may (or may not) have experienced.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (London: Penguin Classics, 2002; originally published 1886), 157
Friedrich Nietzsche, “Trivial suffering makes us small, great suffering makes us great,” in Unpublished Fragments, vol. 14, trans. Paul S. Loeb and David S. Tinsley (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), 86 (Fragment 388).
Stephen Hawking, Interview by Claudia Dreifus, New York Times, May 10, 2011.
Miles Davis, Interview on 60 Minutes, 1989, YouTube video.
“NBA Star Stephen Curry Calls This His ‘Superpower,’” TODAY, 2025.
“How Steph Curry Ignites the Golden State Warriors,” ESPN, 2018.
Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011).
Steve Jobs, “‘You’ve Got to Find What You Love,’ Commencement Address, Stanford University, June 12, 2005,” Stanford University.
Image Credit: PaoloGaetano / E+ / via Getty Images
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