[dumbfoundded]

I don't entirely agree with the concept. Going through stressful situations can either hack away at your being or it can help make you a more informed and resilient person.

Pain can either be useful or useless. Physical exercise is painful. That's useful pain. Falling down and breaking your hip is useless pain.

Many of the stressful and painful situations in starting a company are actually extremely valuable life lessons. Learning how to continue after hearing "no" multiple times, criticism and doubt, continuing to be productive despite uncertainty. All of these traits can really only be developed through trial by fire.

There are some emotional situations though that are useless. The pain teaches you little to nothing. Even these situations can teach us acceptance over the things we can't control.

I believe pain is necessary to feel to grow. You have to take the time to absorb it properly though or else it can destroy you. The only way you can build emotional debt is by trying to forget about it, shoving it into a tiny box in your brain until it explodes out. If you take the time to self reflect and even just acknowledge pain, allowing yourself to experience sadness, you can better yourself in a way impossible without it.

[vageli]

> I don't entirely agree with the concept. Going through stressful situations can either hack away at your being or it can help make you a more informed and resilient person.

> Pain can either be useful or useless. Physical exercise is painful. That's useful pain. Falling down and breaking your hip is useless pain.

In my experience it's not either/or, it's both. I've been in traumatic experiences during which I've told myself that I would come out on the other side better from the experience, and I have. That doesn't and didn't make the experience more bearable while I was undergoing it. It may have offered comfort but not much, and even then in the moment I felt guilty for feeling like I was experiencing something positive (the comfort).

[outworlder]

> That doesn't and didn't make the experience more bearable while I was undergoing it

Amen. Once you are through then, and provided you survived the experience unscathed, then that might build a thicker skin.

Or it might not, and you start having issues requiring psychological treatment. YMMV

[dumbfoundded]

You're right that it's not always the either/or. A single experience can help in some ways and hurt in others. Maybe a better way to phrase it is that there are some painful experiences that teach us to change ourselves and others that help us learn acceptance and resilience.

I also agree with your sentiment that while you're going through it, you may not really care or not if it makes you a better person in the long term. The immediate pain can be overwhelming.

I do believe we should engage our painful experiences though. Really self reflect on them and allow ourselves to feel the emotion. Avoidance is the only surefire way to build debt.

[hosh]

It always sucks when you experience it in the moment. This is me with knowing a lot about the meditation and concentration techniques, and having been through numerous rough cycles.