Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang says some suffering is good so people learn resilience. Resilience is the key for long term success.
Do you agree with Jensen?
There are of course alternative views like things implied by the fictional character Yoda.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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I am not successful or wealthy like Jensen Huang. I realize pain and suffering can be motivators. Or extinguish hope, as Wade and others expressed. So I wonder if what Huang said could be better understood by using the concept of grit. Angela Duckworth wrote that Grit – a combination of passion and perseverance for a singularly important goal – is a hallmark of high achievers in many areas of life. She also found scientific evidence that grit or resilience can grow and should be taught. Years ago when I was teaching, I saw that (in general) students who failed but did not give up trying wound up being more successful than those who seldom failed (and were bailed out by parents when they did fail). It’s a bit like Alfred’s line in Batman Begins: “Why do we fall, sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.” Or Edison’s 10,000 ways how NOT to make a light bulb. Or delayed marshmallow gratification for resilience. Fail, change, iterate, repeat… until the program works and you succeed or improve. Like Elon Musk. I wish that I had been taught that when I was young; or knew to teach it to youth when I had the opportunities.
1. the bearing or undergoing of pain, distress, or injury. 2. something suffered; pain, distress, or injury. SIMILAR WORDS: disˈtress. Do we really want to listen to what this guy has to say about management and or sociology? Maybe he thinks his vast expertise of whatever he is an engineer of is also expertise with everything else in life. Someone once said. “It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up and remove all doubt.”
What little success I’ve had has been at the few companies which are low on the pro-suffering scale while the ones where you grind and live in fear for your job tend to be ones where everyone just keeps their head down and resume as current as possible.
We keep being told the West is too soft now and the likes of Russia, China, India and Africa are going to leave us in the dust because of our weak, decadent ways. We are still here though.
As the old Chinese saying goes, success needs hard work and suffering. The trick is to get others to do the hard work, and others to endure the suffering.
Fear is the key.
Yoda utters gibberish. Emotions are like tools in a toolbox. They all have a purpose and a misuse. Take hate, for instance. As Jesus would say, you can hate sin but not sinners. And, of course, we can fall in love with the wrong things and ideas. Give in to your hate, your fear and your anger – provided you can separate out their proper uses and improper abuses. Suppressing emotions is unhealthy and dangerous. Mature adults redirect them to useful ends, like the fuel for life these instincts are intended to provide.
I wouldn’t be alive without rage. Or love. Or fear. Or all the other tools in the rusty bucket. (Get your tetanus shot; you’re gonna need it.)
Realize the central tenant of stoicism and respect how everything connects together. Since the only constant of experience is change, everything in life is temporary and a gift. Each day some of it is given back until you yourself are given back to whence you came. Have gratitude and pay attention. You will never step foot in the same river twice.
That which does not kill you makes you stronger?
Three words, Nietzsche: persistent vegetative state.
Suffering doesn’t give you character; it merely reveals the character you already have inside you, like a torch in Plato’s cave. As does success. While both success and setbacks can be opportunities for personal growth, you make that choice, influenced by the thoughts and actions of those around you. We grow because we’re imperfect and we fail and we learn and try again (unless you’re trapped in self-actualizing self-esteem trophy culture).
On the biological front, far too many people romanticize hormesis, especially when it’s part of offender propaganda meant to gaslight their victims. Much of what’s touted as “hormetic stress” is simply debilitating, not adaptive – pollution, radiation, toxic heavy metals, Covid-19. None of these are like running sprints. There is zero safe dose.
If no one else sticks up for stoicism, I will. Enjoy the pleasures of life when they’re good for you and avoid them when they’re not. Avoid pain when it’s bad for you but not when it’s necessary and understand how every moment and feeling is connected together in a greater whole.
#GoingAllMarcusAureliusOnYourHindquarters
I’m rather doubtful about hormesis. The evidence is thin.
“Zero safe dose” is also a dubious idea.
If there is low but detectable dose, but harm is undetectable, doesn’t that count as safe dose?
I would disagree with the blanket statement on the harm of radiation. The linear no-threshold model in regards to ionizing radiation is being questioned by newer data. Adaptive capacity AND challenge have to both be optimized for the greatest quality growth to be achieved.
Suffering is a specific word. Mr. billionare here isn’t using the word in any context that aligns with my understanding of ‘suffering’. Achieving even mild success in adulthood is a struggle; struggle is hard work; hard work can be grueling, but it is not suffering. The only suffering I’ve experienced was related to injury and perhaps loss. I’ve seen others suffer miserably with cirrhosis or cancer. Everybody loses loved ones eventually – part of the human condition. People with bombs cracking over their heads are the ones that suffer. Hungry people suffer. Civilians amidst and enlisted in wars suffer. Does Gen Z thinks that struggle is suffering?
I don’t look to billionaire CEOs for their insights.
Misery might be a better word. An unending march through mud.
OK Scary, How about you start a new initiative with great promise at work and get people and money to pursue it. As it grows and becomes successful, other people notice and start a gaslight campaign which results in “new advisors” and ultimately a reorg based on politics and greed to “take it to the next level”. People with no clue are brought in for “fresh thoughts” and the opportunity slips away in paralysis.
Is this suffering? It sure felt like it.
Yoda foretells Anakin destiny. The fall of Anakin (implies German???) is the fall of a nobleman in greek tragedy and the smartest Jedi (implies Jewish???) cannot do anything to change it. Did the fall of German and Jewish make them more resilient? Perhaps but I don’t know.
I don’t think suffering is quite it. Sure it is probably helpful in that a lot can be learned. However, mistakes and incentives can also help learning and I will argue that a person who has focus and boundaries does not need to suffer to learn and succeed, Choosing to suffer is counterproductive in so many other ways.
Regarding my previous comment:
While I laugh at the altruistic motives claimed by my peers, I certainly embrace the philosophy of creating as much suffering for as many people as possible. It took me a long time to be converted but when I am dead I hope that, in lieu of flowers, people donate money to organizations which spread suffering as widely as possible.
I think it will help build the type of society that humans really deserve. 👍
It’s always someone else who wants to decide how much suffering builds character for other people. After years of physical and psychological bullying through elementary, junior high and high school one of my “classmates” felt a bit guilty near graduation and told me:
“No offence, we were just trying to toughen you up.”
Yeah. It had nothing to do with making themselves feel strong by traumatizing a nerdy, depressed introvert; it was all about community outreach. Sure.
That’s correct. We really appreciate that which came from great effort and struggle.
We are hard-wired that way to deal with a real world where living and remaining alive is a challenge.
He is right.
Ha! Always fascinated by the Parenting-style/ uni Frosh-hazing/ Apprentice-shaping/ New-hire-molding/ Recruit-forging debate. So many home/ school/ work cultures to address. Key attributes to success: focus, flow, and self-reliance, then One can do anything and be top 10% doing it, while enjoying the achievements and mastery gained. Expensive and resource-heavy to plan and implement – few ‘systems’ can afford it.
Thoughtful resilience and ocasional support, yes. Drill Sargeant screaming in your face to do another 10 miles in the cold rain, no shoes, to build character, questionable. Sometimes best to look at the Whole Human.
Anecdote, probably not true, likely not valid; food for thought:
10 kids. healthy, average, have never swam in their life. 7 years old.
Threw each one separately off a dock into 5-foot deep warm, calm water, at the same time. Hot day.
2x figured how to dog paddle and became quite comfortable, went to shore. Laughed.
5x flailed about, screamed but made it back to dock, helped out. Sulked and crying.
3x sunk and had to be rescued as adult jumped in. Despondent and unemotional.
—
2 of the sulked and 1 despondent never swam again, hate open water.
1 of the Laughed became good swimmer and seeks water-based vacations.
Remaining 7 have normal water-based interactions.
Worth it?