Decoding the Human Experience: The Importance of Struggle

Human life is a very interesting experience. No matter who you are, rich, poor, famous, or unknown, we all struggle in one or more areas of our life. Just look around you at your family, friends, work colleagues, people you admire, and your favourite athletes, actors, and musicians. Everyone faces struggle.

Fame itself brings innumerable pressures which often crush those touched by it. Michael Jackson, Robin Williams, Heath Ledger, Donald Trump, Bruce Springsteen, Nelson Mandela, and Gandhi are a handful of famous people who have all faced adversity of one kind or another, leading some to an early demise.

Why Do We Struggle?

Let’s put fame aside for now and just look at our own lives. I am sure that there is nobody reading this article who has not faced adversity of some sort or another, whether involving their health, their relationships, their finances, their careers, their spirituality, or some other area of their life. Why is this? Why do we have to struggle so much?

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Let’s scrutinize this in more detail. Anything we want to achieve in life that is worth striving for requires hard work and often dire struggle. Look at Olympic athletes, CEOs of major corporations, entrepreneurs, famous musicians, and other artists. None of them have achieved their goals without hard work and struggle. This often goes on for years before their goal is achieved, the classic example being an Olympic athlete winning a gold medal.

Let’s move beyond the struggles that people engage in by choice, such as training for the Olympics or becoming an entrepreneur. What about struggles common individuals face, such as making ends meet, keeping their failing relationships together, and preventing chronic disease, which is on the rise.

People often fall into these struggles through no fault of their own but rather from circumstances beyond their control. These circumstances often stem from socioeconomic status, upbringing, education, unforeseen events, and timing. The issue is that we often end up comparing ourselves to those who have more than us. I am guilty of this as well.

You see, the purpose of struggle is not to drag us down. Its purpose is not to make us feel destitute. Its purpose is not to leave us wallowing in sorrow. Struggle has a greater purpose. It helps to define what is important for you in the moment and where your attention should lie.

This may be by choice, such as in the trajectory of an Olympic athlete, but it is often thrust upon us by unforeseen circumstances and becomes a matter of survival, such as a single mother trying to support three children by working several jobs. There is no joy in either situation. The Olympic athlete also works long and hard and sacrifices much, including higher education and a social life, to achieve a shot at a gold medal.

It appears it is the destination that matters in both circumstances, but it is the journey that truly matters. Anyone who has won a gold medal, has had a long journey with triumphs and defeats before achieving their goal. If you ask them, it is not the final goal that matters but the journey they took to get to it.

The same is true for the single mother who successfully raises three happy, healthy children despite her circumstances. To watch her children develop into well-nurtured, loved, and supported beings with their own hopes, desires, and potential is the greatest gift a parent can experience.

Putting Struggle to Good Use

Struggle is an integral part of the human experience that helps us focus on what matters to us and work towards a specific goal. We will never struggle for something that does not matter to us. While struggle is never easy, it's always worth it and helps define our values and priorities.

If you are currently struggling in an area of your life, ask yourself why you are giving this so much attention. Are you trying to keep a failing relationship alive? Are you working at a job that you hate? Are you struggling with chronic disease but have no idea how to heal?

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Is it possible that you are climbing up the wrong ladder? Yes, this is true of many of us. So how do we know that our struggles are worth it? To gain greater insight, ask yourself specific questions:

1. Why am I struggling right now?
2. Is it in an area of my life that is important to me?
3. If so, is it in an area of my life that is salvageable?
4. If not, why am I devoting so much energy to this struggle?

These deeper questions can often help us define our struggles and determine whether they truly deserve our attention. I can describe this through an example in the medical field. I work as an intensivist, a critical care physician, and often see patients end up on life support with terminal conditions. They know that they have an incurable condition, but they still wish to be resuscitated and kept alive, despite their diagnosis.

Now, there are often many legitimate reasons for this, such as fear of death, guilt or shame over not spending enough time with loved ones, fear of causing emotional grief to loved ones, and many other reasons too common to mention here.

If these individuals could answer the questions above, they may discover they are struggling against circumstances they cannot change, even if their goal is important to them. They may also realize that their health is not salvageable and may even find that they are wasting energy struggling to stay alive that they should be spending expressing their feelings and being around loved ones as they transition from this life.

Imagine how our experience of struggle could be transformed by asking the above questions. This would help put our struggles into context, define our values, and help us determine what we should be focusing on in our lives. People’s lives would be richer and more meaningful as a result.

Therefore, to decode the human experience, we must understand the nature of struggle and realize that not all struggles are equal. We may find that we have been spending a lot of energy climbing up a ladder and realize that we were climbing the wrong ladder. We need to scrutinize and question our struggles so we do not end up wasting what precious little time we have in our brief earthly lives chasing goals that have no meaning for us based on our higher values.

Struggle has meaning only in the context of an individual’s values, which should align with the struggle being engaged in. Struggle helps to define our focus and our path, and ultimately the trajectory of our lives.