We Need Adversity to Acquire Wisdom
Lessons from The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
Over the past few days, I’ve been reading The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt. Chapter 7 titled “The Uses ofAdversity” was mind blowing.
We Need (Some) Adversity
A few years ago, my friend Denny and I were arguing about whether suffering is important. I remember using the following logical argument: Death is the greatest form of suffering, and we all agree that death is bad (I have yet to find examples of people or animal wanting to die—all living things do not want to die). Therefore, anything that brings you closer to death is also bad (because if it brings you close enough that you actually die, that’s bad), so let’s call that suffering. Because suffering brings you closer to death, suffering is bad, and therefore, we should eliminate all forms of suffering.
However, I speculate that most people know that this is wrong despite the logic making sense. In my personal life, when I think about what experiences have made me grow the most, it was when I experienced great suffering and faced adversity. Those experiences taught me important lessons that have guided me to be and do better. They’ve made me realize that I had a greater potential than I initially thought. Similar, Denny fervently argued that some suffering is needed, and realizing this is a form of wisdom that can only happen after you’ve yourself experienced great enough adversity.
The Happiness Hypothesis itself explains why adversity is important. Adversity has three main benefits that generally lead to a better life:
- The first benefit of adversity is that it “reveals your hidden abilities, and seeing these abilities changes your self-concept”. You go from believing that you’re not a person who can do X to believing that you can do X and more (pick your X).
- The second benefit of adversity is how it is both a filter in relationships and it reveals who is truly there for you, and as a result, it fortifies those strong bonds that you have with those people in your life. It says, “we often develop love for those we care for, and we usually feel love and gratitude toward those who cared for us in a time of need”.
- Finally, the third benefit is in how adversity can “change priorities and philosophies toward the present (‘Live each day to the fullest’)and toward other people.” As a result of something bad happening, people often get a reality check—usually in the form that relationships are more important than chasing goals of material, resources, or fame.
At the same time, the book also argues that not all adversity is good. It goes through multiple psychological research that all conclude down to the following:
For adversity to be maximally beneficial, it should happen at the right time (young adulthood), to the right people (those with the social and psychological resources to rise to challenges and find benefits), and to the right degree (not so severe as to cause PTSD). … [So,] go ahead and erase some of those early traumas [in your child], but think twice, or await future research, before erasing the rest.
Are You Strong Enough to Let Your Child Suffer?
Despite knowing all of that and knowing that adversity is extremely beneficial for the growth of a human being (albeit “at the right time”), suppose that your adolescent child (say 16–17 years old, which is exactly “the right time” according to this book) is dating someone whom you know, from all your life experiences, is definitely going to hurt them badly (and you even have evidence for it). Would you protect your child from this experience or would you let them find it out themselves?
I’m not saying that you should let it happen when you know it’s going to bad, but we’re at conflict here. Knowing that it’s going to be bad also means that the adversity that your child will face as a result of this has the potential to make them grow in ways that even you would be surprised and amazed by. This adversity can make them grow in ways that even you probably can’t teach her. This adversity can make them gain wisdom.
Still, most parents probably wouldn’t do it (I’m not a parent myself, but I suspect this is how most parents would react). Why would you let your child suffer badly when you can protect them from it and when you think that you can teach them that wisdom yourself?
Wisdom (Probably) Can’t Be Taught
Alas, as The Happiness Hypothesis claims, “a common piece of worldly wisdom is that life’s most important lessons cannot be taught directly”. When I read that, even I knew it to be true. In my experience, there are certain lessons that my parents or elders tried to teach me but that never registered until I experienced a setback that taught me that lesson. Why is that the case?
The book says that it’s because wisdom comes from tacit knowledge. There are two kinds of knowledge: (1) explicit—which encompasses facts and things you can recall that are just plainly and logically true, and (2) tacit. According to the leading wisdom researcher Robert Sternberg:
Tacit knowledge is procedural (it’s “knowing how” rather than “knowing what”), it is acquired without direct help from others, and it is related to goals that a person values. … Wisdom, says Sternberg, is the tacit knowledge that let's a person balance two sets of things. First, wise people are able to balance their own needs, the needs of others, and the needs of people or things beyond the immediate interaction. … Second, wise people are able to balance three responses to situations: adaptation (changing the self to fit the environment), shaping (changing the environment), and selection (choosing to move to a new environment).
My conclusion, from reading that, was that because tacit knowledge “is related to goals that a person values”, it is nearly impossible to teach. Let me use the wisdom of “let go of toxic people” as an example of how it’s extremely difficult to teach. Say, someone tries to teach you that wisdom and you haven’t yourself learnt it. You might disagree and say, “well this person is not toxic”, or “I can handle it”, or “I can change them”, or “I love them and I want to be there for them”. If the person tries to tell you why you should let go of toxic people, it likely won’t register. If we accept that wisdom is related to goals that a person values, then you must value the outcome of following that wisdom in the first place. The value here could be “having relationships where people wants the best for you” (something a toxic person usually doesn’t want and/or doesn’t care about). If someone tries to instill it to you, why would you care (if it’s not something you value already)? Teaching someone a value is a tall order. Instead, what’s going to eventually make you have this value to have an experience—an adversity or suffering—that makes you realize that you’re better off in a relationship where someone wants the best for you. Without such adversity, it’s really hard to learn it. Thus, this example illustrates the difficulty of teaching wisdom to someone.
In summary, it is difficult to teach wisdom to someone because you have to instill in them the values behind that wisdom, and it is difficult to instill values to someone because people value what they find good (or what they know will make them not feel bad) and because it takes life experience—and often adversity—to realize what is good or bad for you. Thus, why wisdom is extremely difficult to teach.
Wisdom and Shared Humanity
Wisdom is an interesting concept. The book talked of “a common piece of worldly wisdom”, and related to my previous blog, “Here’s Why You Should Disagree MORE”, the fact that “worldly wisdom” exists is a testament to the commonness of humans. Despite us all living such different lives, we somehow come to share the same wisdoms not only throughout the world but also throughout history and time.
At the same time, there are conflicting worldly wisdom out there. I feel like if you listen to what the Buddha might say and if you listen to what an overachiever (someone like Kobe Bryant and what he would say), you might get conflicting pieces of wisdom. Kobe puts his goal in front of everything in his life — including relationships — whereas I feel like from the advice you’d get from the Buddha (or even from this book), you might want to prioritize nurturing your relationships (and this is something that most overachievers in life will say). I wondered, what are the great conflicting worldly wisdoms of the world and what are the various goals and values behind them?
Conclusions
There are two main lessons I learned from this chapter of The Happiness Hypothesis. First, it’s about adversity—when it is good, “For adversity to be maximally beneficial, it should happen at the right time (young adulthood), to the right people (those with the social and psychological resources to rise to challenges and find benefits), and to the right degree (not so severe as to cause PTSD),” and why (the 3 reasons I listed above). The second thing I learned is that adversity is probably the main thing that teaches wisdom because wisdom is extremely difficult to teach. Upon acquiring wisdom, you are better able to live your life and be happier.
