Comments on: Whatever Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger – Lies! Let’s Try a Rewrite.

By: Doreen

Doreen — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:58:24 +0000

From my personal experience, in particular, one long 5 year nightmare that still isn’t over yet, I would re-write the saying to be “What doesn’t kill you may wish would have”.

By: Stefanie

Stefanie — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 03:10:03 +0000

Thanks Greg, that explanation makes a lot of sense.

By: Greg

Greg — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 23:03:25 +0000

Stop thinking of stronger as something that is always better and Friedrich’s play on words makes a little more sense.

Stronger can be a negative outcome. The abused child gets stronger and becomes an abuser, the healed bone is stronger and deformed while the callous heart is stronger but cold.

At the instinctive level, survival is not about betterment, it is about that next breath.

By: Matthew

Matthew — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 07:29:49 +0000

Personally I take the view that life doesn’t present us with positive experiences or negative experiences. They’re all just experiences, and whether they make us stronger or weaker, they’re the hands that mould us as human beings.

I think the key is to see life’s hiccups as opportunities to learn. If you can do that, you’ll emerge stronger. If not, if you focus on the pain and sadness, it will make you weaker.

So thinks I, anyway.

By: Stefanie

Stefanie — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 04:16:53 +0000

You see – I don’t think it is accurate. If you break a leg, you are weaker because you can’t walk anymore. If you break a heart, you get callouses as you said, but that does not make you stronger in my opinion because you don’t go into the next relationship with the same energy as you had before.

I think that it CAN make you stronger, but not always. I think it takes a certain amount of strength to grow from bad experiences… and many people do not have that strength at different points in their lives.

By: Dave J

Dave J — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 03:01:31 +0000

That expression is used loosely. It’s origin is in Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols.

“In life’s school of war, that which does not kill us makes us stronger”

One could argue that that as we sustain damage, whether physical or mental we undergo a scarring process. When broken bones mend, they heal back thicker than they were. When a broken heart mends, it grows wary and callous.

If you told someone who was currently entrenched in a difficult time “hey buck up, this is good for you, it will strengthen you” yeah, that would be way out of line and no one would want to hear it, ever.

But in hindsight, all things considered, it is a pretty accurate philosophy.