How I Learned to Love Suffering and Make Tedious Work More Beautiful

Testing Philosophy at Work

A few weeks ago, I published an article about amori fati, Latin for “love of fate.” This is where you learn to love your fate that must be faced.

19th Century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche analyzed this concept to the fullest. Nietzsche even had a goal of striving to love the fate of all things that were necessary and take the good with the bad.

His idea was that if he could learn to accept the fate of all things necessary, he could deal with the inevitable hardships and suffering in life. By doing this he could love and make beautiful all necessary things in life no matter how painful it may be.

PUTTING IT TO THE TEST

Once I read about this concept in his book “The Joyous Science,” I said to myself “I think there’s something to this.”

I decided that I would try Nietzsche’s philosophy of fate out. Afterall, the point of the articles that I write is not just to inform or give advice regarding philosophy, it’s to live it. I like to put what I read, study, and write about to the test.

So how did I test this…?

THE MONOTONY OF WORK

There I was. A few weeks ago. Facing another week of tedious, repetitive, mind-numbing work. I needed to work 50 hours in the week, minimum, to appease my over-zealous boss. His demands kept piling up and my work week became longer and longer. Working more overtime to meet his ever-expanding demands was inevitable and I was NOT looking forward to it.

What was I to do?

I had two options:

1. complain, gripe and rebel the entire time and be cast in a negative light by my boss or…

2. accept my fate as necessary, deal with it, and actually “learn to love it” as Nietzsche advised

Guess which option I chose…?”

I chose option 2.

I kept Nietzsche’s philosophy of amori fati in mind throughout the week. By realizing that the suffering of tedious work was necessary to provide for myself, my family and keeping my job, I decided to have fun with it. I actually took pride in completing the tedious and time demanding work.

Rather than complaining and griping the whole time, I took ownership of the necessary fate that I had to deal with whether I wanted to or not. I learned how to love and make beautiful my necessary fate of corporate drudgery.

In the end, it was painless, and I was all the better off for it.

I was able to provide my family more resources since I made more money with overtime and looked better at my job.

KEY TAKEAWAY

• If you have to deal with something head-on that is necessary and unavoidable, don’t complain, whine or fight it. Attack it head-on, learn to love it, and make something beautiful out of it.

References

Nietzsche, Friedrich (1882). The Joyous Science. Translated (2018) Hill, Kevin. Penguin Random House