
“You do not know what life means when all the difficulties are removed” – Teach Different with Jane Addams – Embrace Struggle or Seek Peace
In this episode of the Teach Different podcast, Dan and Steve Fouts analyze a quote by Jane Addams: “You do not know what life means when all the difficulties are removed,” which emphasizes the importance of struggle in understanding the meaning of life. They explore the claim that difficulties are essential for personal growth and the counterclaim that happiness and peace can also provide meaning. They also share personal reflections on the balance between struggle and peace, particularly in the context of parenting and education. Ultimately, this conversation highlights the importance of knowing when to endure struggle and when to seek peace and happiness.
Public domain– no copyright restrictions image. 01/01/1900 Contributors Bain News Service, publisher create. Source -Library of Congress
Transcript
Dan Fouts 00:03
Hey everybody, welcome to the Teach Different podcast. We’re back with a brand new quote to analyze and think about and share experiences about. We have Jane Addams from Hull House, famous American history and progressive from the early 20th century with a really interesting quote about struggles and life and what’s the meaning behind struggle and hardship. And we’ll get to that in a moment, but we’d like to just give a little bit of the sense for what this experience is gonna be about. We’re gonna share this quote as everybody knows. We don’t have a guest tonight, but Steve and I are gonna go with this back and forth, because we wanted to get this to you as soon as we could. We found this actually from someone who’s using the method in class and the second I saw this quote, I said, my gosh, we have to talk about this. And we’re gonna do that, starting with the quote, we’re gonna look at the claim of the quote, we’re gonna look at the counterclaim of the quote, that productive, creative tension that you really need for a good conversation when there’s a little bit of disagreement struggle between the two different interpretations and actually multiple interpretations. And then we’ll ask questions as they come up. Sometimes the questions in these conversations come early, sometimes in the middle, sometimes at the end. The idea behind the questions, and we get this question a lot, is that it really makes you think and sit with it. You don’t have to answer it necessarily but just the fact that you’re asking it means that these conversations we’re having are leaving something with you, wonderment about the world. And that’s a great thing. You don’t have to have closure on everything. All right, here we go. Jane Addams, I’m gonna say the quote twice and then Steve’s gonna start in on the claim. You do not know what life means when all the difficulties are removed. You do not know what life means when all the difficulties are removed. And there’s an exclamation mark at the end of it. So she was excited when she said this. All right, what do you think? What’s your take on this initial take, Steve?
Steve Fouts 02:41
Obviously that life is hard, and the meaning of life is the difficulties. If life were easy, we wouldn’t be everything that we could become. Because we have difficulties, we get to the real essence of what it means to be alive and what has meaning in our life. So this is obviously, I try not to read in to the author of a quote, but my first guess would be this author had some, a difficult life and is looking for some kind of reason to keep going on and some justification for not wanting to think that they were unlucky, but wanting to think that they were actually lucky. Because they had to go through struggle, they now are closer to the truest kind of experience you could have about life because they got through difficulties. So that’s what I’m looking at here. And knowing what I know about Jane Addams, this makes sense. She was dealing with the poor and some people that were struggling quite a bit in their life and got a chance to like witness firsthand when you provide someone a little bit of support and a belief system and, you know, the necessities of life, you actually can transform people. So that’s where I am with it.
Dan Fouts 04:20
Yeah, I agree. I think you can read this just putting it in historical context, which sometimes we do with these quotes. You don’t have to necessarily discuss the author, but I think this one is an example of one where Jane Addams, she worked with the poor, the immigrant population, the victims of industrialization and the people who benefited from industrialization, who were trying to make a better life for themselves and she probably, obviously went through a lot of struggle in creating Hull House in Chicago to serve this population. But then maybe she’s also speaking to those immigrants as well that it is struggle, but it’s worth it in the end. So I agree. I think the claim is, yeah.
Steve Fouts 05:10
And that’s, that’s all, That’s already ironic about the quote. She devoted her life to removing difficulties for people. She was trying to help people and that’s what progressives do. That’s what people do for other people. What are we trying to do? We’re trying to remove obstacles for other people. Think of a parent-child relationship. A parent wants to make a child’s life easier than they had it. Because that’s what they wanna do. They wanna help people. It’s a natural kind of sentiment to wanna help people. But if we took this quote really literally, maybe you would give some different advice to say a parent and say, you know what? You gotta let your kid go through stuff. Because if they don’t make their mistakes and they don’t suffer a little bit because of their own choices, guess what? They’re not going to be experiencing life to its fullest. Stop trying to make it easy for them.
Dan Fouts 06:18
Yeah, let the struggle happen. The struggle has to happen. The overcoming of the struggle puts you in a position of joy and happiness and contentment. But don’t, the meaning is in the struggle. I think is what she’s saying. You do not know what life means when all the difficulties are removed. So if you take away the struggle and all you have is joy without any conflict, then the meaning is gone, which is an interesting perspective on meaning through suffering, which a lot of our quotes actually have this theme in one way or another in our library. And so I like the fact that it’s revisited. I wanna jump into a counterclaim as soon as we can. My counterclaim to this is that what is wrong with happiness and joy?
Steve Fouts 07:05
Go for it. Like this is a natural counterclaim.
Dan Fouts 07:08
My counterclaim to this is that what is wrong with happiness and joy? The happiness and joy is where the meaning in life is, I think is the clear counterclaim here. You don’t have to have struggle in order to have meaning for your life. You can be happy and content. I’m thinking of like an artist. Think of an artist who’s sitting down and building a painting and is enjoying the experience of putting, you know.
Steve Fouts 07:31
I’m adding to that.
Dan Fouts 07:33
Think of an artist who’s sitting down and building a painting and is enjoying the experience of putting, you know, just painting something, creating something. I guess there’s struggle in that, but it’s also a happiness and an expression that gives life meaning. That’s one example. I don’t know if that’s a good one.
Steve Fouts 07:58
Well, think of peace, seeking peace, not world peace, peace within yourself. People are doing that and they’re tired of reacting to all these external events, all these struggles when you’re trying to like get to know who you are as a person and you’re trying to get that kind of respite from the rest of the world where you can think clearly, you can contemplate things, you can philosophize, you can think about like really important things. You need to have peace to do that. And, you know, struggle is reactive. The one thing about it is, yeah, it builds character. I agree with her there. And I agree that having an easy going life can kind of risk a little bit your character in the sense that if you’ve had it all easy, you’re not going to be able to be empathetic and compassionate to other people. But we’re struggling for peace. Some of us are going toward peace. And when you get there, the struggle is gone. And that’s a good thing. One thing I noticed as a teacher in Chicago with a lot of my students came from underserved neighborhoods and they had struggles, okay? Real struggles in their life, safety issues, you know, to and from school and just a general challenge with growing up, you know, in a big urban setting. They struggled with peace. I don’t think they wanted peace. Well, maybe they wanted peace, but when it came, guess what happens when you’re sitting there in silence and nothing is challenging you? Your mind gets back into this routine of, a minute, I’m needing to fight something.
Dan Fouts 10:08
It’s what you’re used to. Right.
Steve Fouts 10:10
I’m used to this. I don’t want peace. don’t, it’s very, that was a troubling thing when I realized
that peace was not something that they were even comfortable with. So what do you do there? You you’ve got to go with people’s struggles and you’ve got to do the best you can.
Dan Fouts 10:31
Right. Right, so you’re talking about it on a more personal level with strife, with your life, with relationships, with the people who are supposed to love you, who might treat you in bad ways or whatever. So that, yeah, I think that the peace angle is really what people, that’s what would give life meaning. If you could find that peace, that the struggle isn’t always where the meaning lives.But then now I’m flipping back to the claim. And if you just think of learning, one thing I’m constantly challenged with with my students is that they shut down the minute something gets difficult, they will shut down their enthusiasm and confidence for whatever reason. And they want learning to be something that is easy, that is understandable, that they can achieve without struggle. And then what I’m always preaching in class is no, the meaning, you do not know what life means when all the difficulties are removed, that you will gain a better understanding of this through struggle. If you sit with this for a while, you’re going to have a level of satisfaction that is going to be amazing. Just stick with it. So I think in a learning context, I’m with the claim.
But I think what you’re talking about, is, peace is something that makes more sense in a different setting.
Steve Fouts 12:07
Yeah, you could argue that you don’t even know what life means until you shut out the noise.
Dan Fouts 12:20
Meditating.
Steve Fouts 12:21
Right.
Dan Fouts 12:21
Why do people meditate? They’re trying to shut out life and allow in a peace and contentment that was not able to emerge because of all their struggles.
Steve Fouts 12:23
Right.
Dan Fouts 12:24
They’re trying to shut out life and allow in a peace and contentment that was not able to emerge because of all their struggles.
Steve Fouts 12:37
Essential question.
Dan Fouts 12:54
To find meaning in my life, when should I pursue peace and when should I pursue struggle?
Steve Fouts 13:04
Well don’t pursue struggle, you mean let it happen.
Dan Fouts 13:06
Endure it, endure it. When do I pursue peace and when should I endure struggle? If I want meaning.
Steve Fouts 13:21
I’m gonna try to answer that. You just triggered something. You know how when you’re in a conflict with someone you know, and you wanna have that conversation with them, that difficult conversation, but you don’t wanna confront them, you don’t wanna stir the pot, what ends up happening with the problem?
Dan Fouts 13:46
It gets worse.
Steve Fouts 13:47
It gets pushed, pushed, pushed, gets worse. So I like your question in that when it comes to things like having difficult conversations with people to strengthen a relationship, you really have to know when a little bit of difficulty is something you need to intentionally seek out because you know that after it’s over. You’re gonna be stronger, you’re gonna be better for it. Your relationship is gonna be stronger.
Dan Fouts 14:29
Yeah, I like that. And for the parents out there, I’m a parent of two kids. I can definitely connect a question in the context of parenting. When should you allow your kids to struggle?
Steve Fouts 14:44
Yeah, that’s good.
Dan Fouts 14:47
And when should you step in as a parent and create peace and contentment and answers for them? That is an ongoing challenge.
Steve Fouts 14:59
Yeah, that’s good.
Dan Fouts 15:03
I like this quote.
Steve Fouts 15:08
You pretty much picked my essential question. It’s just knowing when struggles are counterproductive, when they are productive. And that’s what this quote has given me. The quote has given an angle on this and basically saying, hey, you’re never going to know anything that’s important or real until you’ve got difficulties that you have to overcome. It’s like, I get the point. But don’t give up, don’t make a virtue out of a necessity. If you’re familiar with that phrase, if you can find peace and that’s what you need, you need to go for it and get rid of difficulties.
Dan Fouts 15:51
Right, because happiness lives at the other end of peace as much as happiness lives at the other end of enduring difficulty and suffering. If we’re after happiness, there’s a lot of different roads to get there. Yeah, okay, claim, counterclaim. This is a clear one. my gosh, students of any age could understand this one, I think, and really find personal experiences, that’s the key in these conversations. That when you have individuals sharing personal experiences, it just gives so much rich meaning to these. And Yeah, really, really good. Any other closing thoughts, Steve?
Steve Fouts 16:39
Good quote. No. Good quote.
Dan Fouts 16:40
All right, well thanks everybody. It was great to put this out there and hopefully you hear this conversation and you relate it to you and you think about the people you talk with. If you are a parent, imagine having this conversation with your son or daughter. If you’re a teacher, your students or in any setting, this can just enrich our lives to talk about these big ideas. So until the next Teach Different podcast, everybody take care.