Question.2532 - As you all know by now, this Sunday is due the midterm prompt. Here's an announcement to remind you, so you can have the instructions handy. Instructions: In a 750-1000 word essay, please respond to the following: Nietzsche famously proclaims that any worthwhile achievements in life come from the experience of overcoming hardship. For him, a life of comfortableness and ease is a worthless, wretched, and wasted life. Do you agree or disagree with this assessment of the good life? Why or why not? In support of your argument, please refer to specific passages from the video (Alain de Botton's "Nietzsche on Hardship---Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness," available on YouTube via the link below) Nietzsche on Hardship---Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness
Answer Below:
I completely agree with Nietzsche’s philosophy that a comfortable life is indeed useless and wasteful. The real happiness in life comes from the struggles, hardships and challenges one faces throughout his/her lifetime. A fulfilling life requires sufferings and hardships. His philosophy can be understand in his words “To those human beings who are of any concern to me I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignities—I wish that they should not remain unfamiliar with profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, the wretchedness of the vanquished: I have no pity for them, because I wish them the only thing that can prove today whether one is worth anything or not—that one endures.” (YouTube, 2012)What he means is that when we want to achieve something extraordinary, we must also undergo pain and sufferings. He himself suffered a great deal of physical ill health and hardships when he was young. He became a professor in his mid twenties but was forced to retire in his mid thirties. Unfortunately he was economically poor and even though he wrote many books, many of them went unpublished. His health problems added to his hardships. He faced troubles in his personal life as well and was suffering from loneliness. He described what he was he living in as a “cave” and envied his friends who were married. The last years of his life was met with more misery and sadness when he was sent to an asylum in Germany and was looked after by his mother and sister. It was quite a tragic situation, as a man with such high level thinking and philosophies had such a sad ending. He believed that in order to achieve success, hard work and challenges are inevitable. There are indeed no shortcuts to success and those who achieve success and happiness without facing any adversities often lead a very ordinary and wasteful life with no meaning(Young, 2011). I completely agree with this philosophy because I strongly believe that hard work is a must and Midterm 3 without that no success or achievements are actually worth achieving. Failures and downfalls are a part of the process, they help us in learning and improving along the way and paths of life. Nietzsche says “Do not talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name great men of all kinds who were very little gifted. They acquired greatness, became 'geniuses' (as we put it), through qualities the lack of which no one who knew what they were would boast of: they all possessed that seriousness of the efficient workman which first learns to construct the parts properly before it ventures to fashion a great whole; they allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than in the effect of a dazzling whole” (YouTube, 2012). This statement is very powerful and speaks volumes about those who boast about having inborn talents and gifts as their tools for success and achievements. (Young, 2011) Talents and skills are developed over time, one needs to continuously work on their skills, talents and after innumerable attempts they achieve the first step of success. From doctors to engineers to craftsmen to athletes, chefs, musicians, performing artists, educators, people from every field need to work on their abilities and skill sets. (Young, 2011) A good life in my opinion is often surrounded mostly by challenges and hardships. We struggle, fight, undergo failures, downfalls, setbacks and challenges for most of our lives, but all that is worth at the end when we achieve success. Achieving success through a series of pain and struggles is worth much more than achieving it without the same. The pain is definitely worth it at the end. Difficulty is normal and the difficulties shape our character and us as human beings in the society(Young, 2011). When we are met with challenges and complicated situations we have two choices, either we take the easier way out and avoid the struggles through shortcuts or we Midterm 4 embrace the same, work through the hardships and achieve success at the end. Pain and challenges help us shape our growth and development, life is a series of ups and downs with a lot of difficulties which help us respond to them efficiently and without fear. Often when we are under pressure, fear or pain, we end up creating or realizing something beautiful. For example, once I was very ill and in a lot of physical pain, I had two choices in front of me, which were to either continue thinking about the pain constantly or fight through the same by being positive, praying and being hopeful that I would get better very soon. Indeed when I accepted that being sick and ill is a part of life, and sometimes it is more of a mental fight against the sickness which helps us recover, I accepted the pain and fought through it. In a few days time I got better and realized that it is important to hardships and challenges must be accepted and not avoided. As a person this experience changed me and my thinking patterns. I started realizing that failures are absolutely fine and normal, but giving up is not, there are many occasions where I have not got the desired results and have failed even after giving my best and multiple attempts, but giving up is the worst form of defeat which is even more dangerous than the actual defeat. Problems have solutions and being able to fight it and resolve it is the biggest victory one can achieve. An easy life without any difficulties or problems, is a life that has not understood the value of true happiness which can be found in smallest of victories like overcoming a fear of something. The experience of failure is a unique experience in itself and is a great teacher who prepares us in various ways for the hurdles in life. Midterm 5 References YouTube, 2012. 06 - Nietzsche on Hardship - Philosophy: A Guide to Happiness. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=280Ev9h_C3c> [Accessed 24 September 2021]. Young, J., 2011. Friedrich Nietzsche. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.More Articles From Ethics
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