After being in constant pain for 12 years, I learned something important: I could not become a victim of my suffering.

I realized the more I focused on the pain, the bigger it became. So I didn’t try to ignore it but I also refused to let it define me. Instead, I learned to embrace it and live alongside it. At the time, I didn’t know if or when the pain would ever leave.

During that season, I came across a quote from Jensen Huang that stayed with me: “I hope suffering happens to you.” It sounds harsh at first, but the meaning behind it is powerful. Greatness doesn’t come from intelligence alone. It comes from character. And character is rarely formed in comfort it’s often shaped through hardship.

I’m not glamorizing suffering, and I don’t believe he was either. The point is not to wish pain on anyone, but to shift the way we think about it. Pain is inevitable in life. It will come to all of us at some point.

But suffering is often shaped by how we see it.

Struggles are part of the human experience. They aren’t meant to leave us bitter, but to make us better. Not worse but stronger, wiser, and more compassionate.

Some people see suffering as punishment.

Others learn to see it as pruning.

And pruning, though painful, is what helps something grow into its strongest and most fruitful version.

I don’t wish suffering on anyone.

But I do hope that when it comes as it inevitably does you allow it to shape you, strengthen you, and move you forward rather than hold you back.