Do people need adversity?

I don’t think we necessarily need adversity in order to grow.
The challenges should come from within, that in itself generates satisfaction and growth.

I love your question because it strikes at the heart of human nature, and nature in general. There is an anxiety-performance curve that states that in order to have performance, you must have a certain level of anxiety (same thing as stress or adversity). After the level of anxiety gets very high, then performance starts to drop off. But you make an excellent point which is – if we have everything we want and need without having to put forth any effort, we will never strive for more. No pain, no gain.

I would use the term challenge rather than adversity and it goes beyond avoiding stagnation. It is a basic human need to solve problems that may either be imposed from the outside or be of our own making.

Rhinos won’t mate unless there are enough males in the group to cause rivalry. To the extent that we are invested in the older, “fight or flight” parts of our brain, we probably do need some adversity. Evolution toward the abstract/logic based prefrontal cortex may make adversity less necessary.

I don’t.

We thrive off of it. That is why utopia sucks and cannot exist without everyone being lobotomized.

rather do without it, but it does make us or break us. Personally, had more than my share of adversity, and it has made me a better person.

This question reminds me of surviving POW’s.
They created routine, no matter how small or “mundane” it was.

This adversity played a great deal in keeping them alive.

Adversity forces us to take action and use or noggins. It fuels our response reflex and can help motivate us for out of our apathy. Adversity is a necessary thing for personal growth, absolutely.

People prefer just enough challenge to make a task interesting, but not enough that it becomes frustrating.

The answer to your question, though: No, our lives do not need to suck to be worthwhile. I know how to reframe tasks to make them interesting just fine. I do not need to worry about starving to death, or being tortured for political reasons, or about being homeless in order to “grow.” Especially on the societal scale. What’s the value of “growth” if you have to inflict misery to achieve it?

It’s the mother of invention, I am told.

This has been the question since ancient times. Sophocles wrote about it in Oedipus Rex.

I think the answer is yes. We need something to push against to make us stronger. It can be something as simple as a due date for a school assignment or as devastating as a disease.

I believe the saying is, ”Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

I had one of Moon Zappa’s cats.

I here she is a Valley Girl!

That is what I hoping retirement to be like, but the way our government handles things I should always have something to be fighting against.

Thanks everyone for your answers.

@elenuial Having adversity doesn’t mean your life sucks or that you are on the brink of death. When I played soccer, I knew my opposite player on every team in the competition, and I always played better against the players I disliked. If I was taken down in a bad tackle, I played better still. I wasn’t exactly about to die out there, but the challenge helped me rise to the occasion.

Unless we all want to act like Droopy the Dog, yeah. We definitely need it. Life is colorless without a challenge or two.

@FireMadeFlesh If you’re talking about adversity on the societal level (which your question implies all over the place), somebody’s life is sucking hardcore. It doesn’t make you “rise up” to the occasion. It causes learned helplessness, because there’s no reason to get out of a situation that society has seemingly made it impossible to get out of.

Does it make you play better on the soccer team? Sure. Does it mean that we should be willing to suffer or make other people suffer on the societal level? That’s where I call bs.

I have always done better under pressure. These days of not working I could easily be a slug.

Adversity can be a blast! But I’m not an extremist. Everything in moderation! I think wars are a waste of good effort that could be used elsewhere. But as long as there are egocentrics who are hell-bent on amassing power, adversity will always have it’s rightful place amongst us.

Some people will say you don’t know how lucky you are until you have to do without, but I don’t believe that is necessary. As humanity continues to mature, more and more people discover that they are self-motivated, not by external circumstances, but from within.

“Whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.”

Not at all. But everybody needs to know how to confront it.

@davidbetterman: Necessity, adversity, schmadversity….they are all useful triggers to fire the imagination.

I have learned how to survive in sub-zero weather for four days without power this Dec. That felt like adversity. Milo didn’t even carry in kindling for me.

Adversity creates the dissonance/discomfort that is needed in order for you to get up off your ass and make some changes, hopefully positively.

I think there will always be adversity even though things may get “easier or safer”....we are vulnerable to so much that is beyond human control, despite modern technology.

No. Adversity bite the big one. I hate adversity…