What Doesn't Kill You

I'm going to come clean right from the start.  I love bad pop music. Like really love it.  Like I have to sneak onto youtube all the time to figure out what songs I'm hearing on the radio.  I then listen to the song over and over and over again.  If I still love it I splurge and spend the $1.29 and add it to my own personal music library.

One of my favorite sources of new music is the gym.  My 2 favorite classes at the gym (here and here) (which if you have not tried out you should.  Do not use my current physique to judge the effectiveness of these classes.  They are incredible and I assure you, you are only 1 month away from actually seeing muscles in your arms) have a very pop-heavy soundtracks right now.  

Today the chest press track was this little number by Kelly Clarkson

Here are the lyrics for the chorus.

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes you fighter
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn't mean I'm over 'cause you're gone

Now, these lyrics seem very appropriate for chest presses.  What doesn't kill you in the chest press arena of life makes you stronger, but as I was hitting the third round I realized that I don't actually believe the saying "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger."  I understand the sentiment behind the saying and I think there are lots of cases where we go through really hard things and consequently we are stronger when we come out of it.

But... the trouble is that that isn't always the case.  There are things that I have been through that have not made me stronger.  There are scars that I carry from dealing with relationships with other people that are still weak places--that will never be strong places. 

The other trouble I see comes when you turn it around.  If we believe that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, we also believe that what we do to other people, no matter how terrible will eventually make them stronger--like we each have an excuse if we do something mean to other people because it will just make them stronger.

Maybe Hemmingway put it best. So let us be very very careful with one another.

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.

Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms, 1929

So let us be very very careful with one another.