Sorrow happens, hardship happens, the hell with it, who never

When Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote, “Sorrow happens, hardship happens, the hell with it, who never knew the price of happiness, will not be happy,” he spoke as one who had walked through the furnace of life and emerged with a deeper understanding of the human soul. These words are not a cry of despair, but of defiance—an anthem to endurance, a hymn to the heart’s power to rise. In his rugged, unyielding tone, Yevtushenko teaches us that happiness is not given; it is earned. One must pay for joy in the coin of sorrow and hardship, and only those who have felt the weight of suffering can truly appreciate the lightness of peace.

Yevtushenko, the great Russian poet of the twentieth century, lived in a world of oppression and upheaval. Born under the Soviet regime, he used poetry not as an escape from reality but as a weapon of truth against it. He saw his people endure famine, censorship, and fear, yet still they sang, laughed, and loved. His own life was shaped by courage—the courage to speak of what others were too afraid to name. When he declared, “the hell with it,” he was not dismissing pain but mastering it. His defiance was born of compassion, his rebellion of hope. To him, sorrow and happiness were not opposites but partners in the great dance of human experience.

The origin of this quote lies in Yevtushenko’s belief that life’s meaning comes not from ease, but from struggle. In his homeland, hardship was not an occasional guest—it was the air people breathed. Yet, within that suffering, there was a fierce beauty: the laughter of children in snow, the songs sung in basements, the poetry recited in secret. He saw that those who had suffered most were also those who laughed most deeply. Why? Because they had known loss, and therefore cherished what little joy life offered. They had paid the price of happiness, and so they understood its worth.

Consider the story of Nelson Mandela, who spent twenty-seven years in prison, much of it in harsh and solitary conditions. He was separated from his family, his nation, his freedom—everything that makes life bearable. Yet when he emerged, he spoke not with bitterness, but with peace. He had endured hardship, and through it, he had found the capacity for forgiveness. He once said, “As I walked out the door toward my freedom, I knew that if I didn’t leave my bitterness behind, I’d still be in prison.” Like Yevtushenko, Mandela understood that to know true happiness, one must first have faced despair. The man who has never been hungry cannot truly savor bread; the one who has never been imprisoned cannot truly value freedom.

Yevtushenko’s wisdom calls us to acceptance—not of defeat, but of reality. Sorrow happens, he tells us. Hardship happens. These are not punishments or accidents; they are the rhythms of existence itself. To curse them is to fight the current of life; to endure them is to learn its secret. The strong do not avoid suffering—they transform it. They take pain into their hearts and forge from it wisdom, compassion, and gratitude. The one who says “the hell with it” does not give up; he transcends. He sees that happiness is not the absence of suffering, but the triumph over it.

The ancients knew this truth well. The Stoics taught that adversity reveals the measure of a person. Marcus Aurelius, emperor and philosopher, wrote in his Meditations: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” So too did Yevtushenko understand that each wound carves a deeper space for joy to enter. The heart that has never broken cannot truly open. The soul that has never fallen cannot truly rise. Thus, he bids us not to flee from pain, but to meet it bravely, knowing that through it, we are made whole.

So, my children of endurance and hope, take this teaching to heart: when sorrow visits you, do not curse it; when hardship presses upon you, do not flee. Say instead, “the hell with it,” and walk forward with unyielding spirit. For every tear that falls becomes a seed from which future joy may grow. Every trial endured refines the soul like fire refines gold. Those who would know happiness must first learn to bear its cost, and those who can endure that cost will find that joy, once found, cannot be taken away.

In the end, as Yevgeny Yevtushenko reminds us, it is not a life without pain that brings fulfillment, but a life that embraces both sorrow and happiness as sacred teachers. So when the storm comes, face it. When grief knocks, open the door. And when the dawn returns, as it always does, you will find that your heart—tempered by struggle, softened by compassion—beats not only with joy, but with understanding. For only those who have known darkness can truly walk in the light.