With all the focus on success it’s easy to overlook the valuable lessons we can learn from the more difficult parts of our journey. Below, you’ll find some very interesting insights from some of the most fascinating members of the community.
Wendy Trattner
Suffering taught me how to create meaning when none is given. I lost my parents at a young age, and grew up in a household marked by instability and abuse. I had to learn very early how to adapt and survive, pushing down many emotions and even grappling with the meaning of life by the time I turned 8. Read More>>
Andrea Dawson
The one thing that stood out the most was suffering exposing my heart posture. I realized my faith grew fragile, because I tried to rush God’s timing. Everything doesn’t always feel good, but I do believe everything has purpose. The pain I didn’t ask for taught me so much. The hard seasons built something in me that comfort never could. CHARACTER! Read More>>
Caroline Gates
A lot of people are aware of the brutal cycle of critiques students face in art school: when you take everything you’ve been pouring your life into to the front of the room and the experts in the field and your peers take 15 minutes to tell you why it’s not good. Read More>>
Andry Rakotomalala
Homelessness taught me a lot. In 2024, in LA and OC, homelessness taught me the real value of a dollar and the cost of not understanding the systems you live inside. When every dollar matters, you become deeply aware of how fragile stability can be and how quickly circumstances can change when costs rise faster than income. Read More>>
Jack Hanson
Suffering creates a lot of clarity. It shows you who you are, what you are made of, where your resilience comes from, how you cope, and who you lean on, among other things. It also reveals who your true friends and allies are, and what your relationship with them is. Read More>>
Shange Jaara Lilaa
Suffering has shown me that I am forged by fire, and that fire has strengthened my heart and expanded my capacity to hold more of life. This journey has not been easy, but it has shaped how I define success. Read More>>
Artem Tikhonenko
Something that suffering taught me that success never could is how to endure. Success came and went and felt great in the moment, but it was temporary. It didn’t teach me how to keep going when the excitement faded. Suffering did. Read More>>
Prathyusha
Suffering revealed the parts of me that success could never reach. It taught me how to sit with myself, my fears, my limits, my truths. Success never challenged me the way the Pain did. Read More>>
Kevin Myles
Suffering, failing, struggling through obstacles, all taught me that I was capable of more. They allowed me to grow into who I needed to be to achieve the things that I wanted. I’ve learned a lot more about life and myself from challenges than I have from success. Without obstacles, we would never grow into our greatest selves. Struggling also teaches you appreciation and compassion. Read More>>
Dawn Pace Blasingame
Suffering is a great teacher. First, it taught me not to suffer. Imagine that! I learned to break down and look at individual circumstances in pieces. Bite sized pieces. Solving one issue at a time. Sometimes by solving one thing, the rest falls into place. I learned persistence. Nothing goes easily. You have to keep at it and resolve one conflict at a time. Read More>>
Calandra Martni
Suffering taught me to trust my lived experience in a way success never could. For a long time, I believed clarity would come from getting things “right”. I strived of achieving, proving, producing, being validated. But it was the seasons of struggle, uncertainty, and friction that actually shaped my wisdom. Read More>>
Nick Middaugh
Suffering taught me contentment with circumstances—something success alone never could. More importantly, it revealed how essential adversity is for genuine character growth, reframing ‘misfortunes’ as gifts. Read More>>
Lord of Horns
To succeed is to suffer. Success requires sacrifice. Dimmu Borgir has a great line in one of their songs, ‘All great art is reached through suffering.’ Most great artists have a sordid past full of trauma. Their creations and performances are how they cope or attempt to heal. Most of us in the metal community have suffered some way or another throughout our younger years. Read More>>
Rissa Lavilla
Suffering taught me how to sit with myself when there was nowhere to rush to. Success moves fast and rewards momentum and output, but suffering slows everything down and asks harder questions. When my health, certainty, and sense of forward motion were taken away, I had to really sit with who I was without that productivity I was so used to. Read More>>
Dionne Webster
I would first have to say that I feel suffering and success kind of go hand in hand. Through this spiritual journey and in mentoring others, Iv’e learned that our hardest moments are teachers that refine us and strengthen us for deeper alignment. Read More>>
Victoria Langford
Suffering is probably our greatest teacher. Success can be a real danger because it can lead to pride and believing that we can do it all on our own. Suffering leads us to a place of humility, and, if we choose, a place of gratitude for what we do have. Yet we have to choose to not become bitter in suffering. Read More>>
Carrie Jean
Success is a wonderful motivator, but it’s a surface-level teacher. Suffering, on the other hand, taught me about the architecture of my own soul. It taught me that I am unbreakable not because I’m ‘tough,’ but because I’ve been refined by the pressure. Success never could have taught me the value of a quiet, grounded mind. Read More>>
Syvanna Ascencio
Suffering taught me things that ultimately success doesn’t have access to such as learning what actually matters , recognizing how strong and fragile you are , and that self compassion becomes non negotiable. When things fall apart, you either learn to be kinder to yourself or you don’t survive intact. Suffering tells you what breaks you and what doesn’t. Read More>>
Adam Holladay
Suffering taught me that there is always a way up. Being able to keep going even when things are hard or there does not seem to be a way to keep going. Read More>>
Desteny Tolbert
Suffering taught me empathy, patience, and how to stay present when things don’t resolve neatly. Things success never asks of you. Read More>>
Gideon J. Gallegos-Sanchez
Suffering makes you appreciate the highpoints like nothing else. Suffering just means you’re on the way to something, at minimum decent and at best, something fantastic. It’s all just a roller-coaster that’s bound to have peaks and valleys. Success is a blast, of course, but without dealing with the struggle of getting there, it doesn’t really have the same effect. Read More>>
Andy Law
I studied Buddhism slightly in college and one thing they said really put a spell on me. ‘Suffering is inevitable and it is the normalcy of life.’ Honestly that helped me grow up so much. Success can never be like suffering. Although it feels good to succeed, success never sustain. It can only take part so much in a lifetime. Read More>>
