SELF IMPROVEMENT
What Can We Learn from Aushwitz today?
We are facing a situation over which we have no control
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~Viktor Frankl
We are now facing a situation that we cannot change. Therefore, we are now challenged to change ourselves.
Are you up to the challenge?
My friend and mentor, Sheila Finkelstein, posted a video on her YouTube channel earlier today. That video got me thinking and inspired this post.
Sheila talked about looking forward to the time when the lockdown is over, and she can start enjoying life again. To inspire herself, she looked at some of the photos she had taken on New Year’s day 2020. Her message was of hope and continuity. Immediately, it reminded me of Viktor Frankl’s The Man’s Search for Meaning.
Our circumstances may be different, but like Frankl, we are facing a situation over which we have no control. The only thing we can control at this point is our attitude toward where we find ourselves.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
We don’t know how long this will last. The longer it goes on, the more challenging it will be. For most people, that means financial difficulties as well as uncertainty about whether or not they will have a job or a business when this is over.
Frankl noticed that the main difference between those who survived and those who died was that the survivors had something to look forward to. They had a purpose. They had a reason to live. In other words, they had a compelling “why.”
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
The outbreak of COVID-19 and all the related inconveniences and suffering could be a curse, or it could be the best thing that ever happened in our lives. As Frankl points out,
“Between stimulus and response there is a gap. In that gap is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
We are experiencing that gap right now. This is our opportunity for growth and reclaiming our freedom. How we react to the given circumstances will determine whether we move forward in a positive and uplifting manner into a better future, or continue the way we were and/or perish.
“Those who know how close the connection is between the state of mind of a man, his courage and hope, or lack of them and the state of immunity of his body will understand that sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect”.
And deadly it can be.
This is Day 1 of the 30-day challenge issued by Dr. Mehmet Yildiz to write a short story on one theme. I am choosing Self Improvement as my theme.
As always, thank you for reading and your support.
I am a self-proclaimed weirdo, Jack of Many Trades and Master of Some. I live the Freedom Lifestyle — life on my terms, and help those who are interested in doing the same. (Join the Tribe)
“You can let others tell you what it means to be successful, or you can decide it for yourself.”