REST & RECOVERY 😏“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”..

REST & RECOVERY 😏

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”💫 You’ll hear this expression when life turns to shit and it’s something for which we have Nietzsche to thank. 🙏 It’s such a cliché now that it can be found fucking everywhere from self-help guides to gym culture.💪 But if you know anything about Nietzsche, you’ll know that what he says and what he means can be two very different things.🧐 Is he really saying we should seek resilience, accept life’s challenges and even choose the harder path? Or have his words been taken completely out of context, causing more damage than good?😢

Nietzsche has to be taken within his worldview – a worldview very different to nearly everyone else. 🌏 He was obsessed with the idea of the Übermensch, or Superman, which he saw as the peak of human achievement.🥇 This was no muscle-bound, cape-wearing superhero, but a person who realised that the values and ideas they lived by were simply made-up and they were free to create their own 💭 The Übermensch was not just your average Joe, but someone extremely rare who had done a lot of fucking hard work to reach this realisation.🥵 They had already developed the strength to overcome everyday challenges and the character to stand in defiance of their own community. As Nietszche would say, the Übermensch was the lion, while the rest of us remained camels burdened by the society in which we live.🦁🐪

To a person who has found the inner strength to create their own ideals, Nietzsche says they should view suffering as an opportunity to build resilience.👊 Not shy away from it.😬 This is very different to saying suffering always makes you stronger, or you should therefore seek adversity for its own sake. There are occasions that even set the Übermensch back.⚠️ Therefore, like many other cliches, this one has the danger of making things worse: some things don’t make us stronger. 🤕 If you’ve had your heart broken, been cheated on, or been treated like shit, don’t be disappointed with yourself if you can’t handle it, can’t bounce back or need to take years to get over it.❤️‍🩹 We are not superheroes and there is nothing wrong with that.👍 Rather than taking on adversity, the better move may be to avoid that shit altogether, or if you are suffering, withdraw and take time to fucking recover.😮‍💨