Suffering Is Not Effort

Normalize working hard without glamorizing pain.

When I was 10, the summer after 5th grade, my family and I moved from the US to China.

I was objectively a pretty good student. Took classes above my grade level, got straight A's, attended "academically-advanced" programs, the whole deal. Definitely have to thank my parents for pushing me and providing me with all the resources I needed and more.

When I got to Beijing, I was enrolled in "初二" (middle school, year two) at a local school. In China, there's no "kindergarten." There are three years of pre-school education, then six years of elementary school (corresponding to grades 1-6 in the US), three years of middle school (grades 7-9), and three years of high school (grades 10-12). So on September 1st, 2006, a few months removed from finishing 5th grade in New Jersey, I started my first day of 8th grade.

I didn't think much of it at the time. Skipping two grades seemed cool to me. I was on pace to go to college when I was 15! The thought of possibly struggling in school never once crossed my mind.

I'll never forget the day I got my first math test back. My teacher sat at the front of the classroom and called our names out one by one. When it was my turn, I went up and when he handed me my graded exam I saw him subtly shake his head in disappointment. At the top of my paper, circled for extra emphasis, was a big red "56/100".

The beginning of that school year was a tough one for me. The difference in rigor between Chinese and American curriculum at the same grade level would've been a challenge to overcome in and of itself; as an 11-year-old I was learning algebra, geometry, physics, and chemistry concepts taught to high schoolers in the US. I was also learning everything in a semi-foreign language and adjusting to general culture shock at the same time. In school I was known as "小美" (little American).

But I was determined to catch up to my new peers. I spent my English class periods (the only class I excelled in) doing problem sets for other subjects. I stayed after school to discuss concepts with my teachers. I played basketball with the older kids every day to earn their respect (tip to any kids moving to foreign countries: sports are a universal language) so they'd answer my questions about our assignments. I regularly stayed up working past 1am and pulled countless near-all-nighters to study.

When our final exams grades came in at the end of the school year, my scores ranked third highest in the class. I used the ¥500 prize money I won and bought a used PlayStation Portable (PSP 2000) at the local wholesale market across the street from my house. My hard work paid off, literally.

The common Chinese saying "吃苦" translates to "eat bitterness." It refers to the mindset of enduring pain and hardship without complaint. "She deserves this success because she ate bitterness to get here." // "Kids are so spoiled nowadays, they can't eat bitterness anymore." In a culture that accepts suffering as a natural part of life and values perseverance above all else, the ability to eat a lot of bitterness is perhaps the most highly regarded virtue. There's a proverb that goes "吃得苦中苦，方为人上人" (eat the most bitter of the bitters, become the person above the people).

And I get it: there's undeniable value in having grit and discipline. No pain, no gain! But I've noticed that the eating bitterness mindset can lead us astray and become counterproductive when suffering is glorified above all else as a demonstration of effort. There’s this prevalent belief that how hard you're trying is explicitly measured by how much pain you're putting yourself through.

One observation I made during that first year in Beijing was how the adults around me would react to my outwardly-visible struggles. If I expressed discomfort or fatigue while studying at home, my parents would tell me "辛苦了!" (appreciate your effort!), bring me water, and tell me to stretch or take a break. If I walked into my first class with dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep, my teachers would praise me for my desire to excel in their classes. Those were taken as signs that I was trying my best.

On the other hand, if I slept past 10am on a weekend morning, I would sometimes get criticized for being lazy. If my classmates and I were acting "too joyful" at school, we would be assigned more homework. I guess those were signs that we had effort to spare.

The irony of it all is that in reality, regardless of my demeanor, I think my actual level of effort was rather consistent. I was eleven, just a child living life one day at a time. I wanted to explore my new city, try my best in school, and play as many video games in my free time as I could. Life was simple. I don't remember myself ever truly “suffering.” But it was evident to me, even then, that there was this socially-accepted positive correlation between unhappiness/pain and effort/praiseworthiness.

As I grew older, I started noticing it everywhere. There was a kid on my varsity basketball team who sweat profusely; I'm almost certain he didn't get yelled at by our coaches as much as the rest of us in practice and was given more playing time than he deserved because he always looked like he was working 10x harder than we were. College students would constantly compete in the pain Olympics - "Oh you think you have a lot of work? I'm a double major with a minor taking 22 units this semester and have six papers due in the next five hours" - and loudly complain about how much more their lives sucked as a bizarre form of bragging. Then when I started working, first in public accounting and later with startups, there was widespread hustle porn: the fetishization of long work hours and glorification of being a workaholic. The belief that you're not successful unless you are unhappily grinding every hour of every day.

This logic is inherently backwards; instead of optimizing for effort (being resourceful, using all the tools at your disposal, getting creative), many people optimize for pain (piling on time, energy, and stress to the point of physical and mental burnout).

The truth is that if it constantly hurts, you might very well be doing it wrong. Feeling a little muscle soreness after lifting weights is normal; lingering pain and discomfort is probably the result of using poor form or too much weight, both of which can lead to serious injury. It's important to be able to differentiate between the necessary, productive types of struggle that will help push and improve you, and the damaging types that won't.

Being unhappy is also extremely inefficient. Unhappy people are easily triggered, and don't have the peace of mind to make good long term decisions because they often act out of emotion and impulse. Happy people attract other happy people, and their optimism often allows them to achieve more.

I'm 25 now. I'm sure I've had my ups and downs like anyone else, but I can't really remember the last time I had a genuinely bad day. I think one of the main reasons that's the case is I've never fallen into the "more suffering = more effort = more success" trap. I'm always honest with myself, and don't need approval from others to know whether I'm working hard towards my goals or not. For the most part, I've internalized my motivation and fulfillment. Suffering is not effort. In fact, I strongly believe the opposite to be true: I'm not trying my best if I'm not happy.

And I'm pretty happy :)

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Thanks to Natalie Toren, Lori Abichandani, Brittany Laughlin, Riah Forbes, Dan Morse, Kushaan Shah, Étienne Fortier-Dubois, Will Quist, Richa Prasad, Alex Hugh Sam, and Nich Kesonpat for reading drafts of this.

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