“The last of the human freedoms: to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” (Viktor Frankl 1905-1997).
One of the greatest freedoms we have is to read without fear. It is the freedom to learn, to grow, to experience the lives of others through the work of authors who offer us insight, inspiration, affirmation, and accountability.
We get to choose what we will read and what we will learn. Even when everything seems to be stripped away from us, it isn’t until we surrender our minds and our attitudes to others that we experience true defeat. Never give up hope and faith in the triumph of goodness. This is one of the messages I took away from reading Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning.
Man’s Search for Meaning was the first book that stopped me in my tracks. Up to the time I read Frankl’s book, reading was something I was required to do as part of some school curriculum. My attitude towards reading was ambivalent. I focused on the task of completing assignments. That kept my teachers and my parents off my back. Regrettably, having such a prejudice against exploring the “classics” I was assigned, I read only to complete an assignment, not to consider what the author had to say or share. Other students somehow found deep meaning and purpose in the books we were assigned. I didn’t relate to the concepts of insight or reflection. To this day when anyone utters, “let’s reflect on what we have just read,” I still flash back to those mindless days in high school when I was not prone to reflect on any subject, assigned or otherwise. In my mind, if a book was required reading, I assumed it couldn’t stand on its own as an elective assignment. Heck if the book was so good, why did it have to be assigned/required?
It was my freshman year at college when I was offered Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning. I had very little knowledge and absolutely no understanding of the Holocaust. Somehow that part of World War Two history didn’t get much discussion time in the school I attended. My only contact with the Holocaust had come in eighth grade when I asked my friend’s mother what the numbers tattooed on her arm meant. She told me. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t understand how what she told me could have happened.
It wasn’t until almost five years later I was offered the chance to confront the facts and the emotions of the Holocaust. If you don’t remember reading Frankl’s book, I urge you to go find a copy and re-read it now. How did those folks survive? How were they able to carry on “normal” lives after what had happened to them?
Hope and faith are the words that come to mind
Frankl’s book revealed a new world to me, a world not as comfortable as the one I was used to. It was a life, foreign to me, yet because of Frankl’s book, I was invited to acknowledge and confront emotions I never had experienced. I wanted to find answers. Unbeknowst to me at that moment, a modified creature was being born inside my shallow and self-absorbed form.
That’s where the journey began for me that has led me to hope, to pursuing a life incorporating noble purposes, working to ease the suffering of others. Some days I stray and fall short of living in hope and for the benefit of others. But fortunately, something always interrupts those moments.
Hope helps me move on as I discover and re-discover meaning for my life – purpose for my time here on earth. All because of a book. All because someone wrote a story that had to be told, an experience that had to be shared.
I have been freed to choose my own way. I have been freed to believe in hope and faith. My overall attitude still remains – every life should have a noble purpose. There is power and promise in hope.
Good post, Jon. I have not read the book you reference but your post makes me want to. Good reminders about how we control it all………
Thanks for reading this post. It was a life changing book for me.