Lessons From Victor Frankl

The article read like it was written yesterday. Political parties that disagree, economic experts making opposite predictions about the state of the economy. The seemingly endless debates about crime and drugs.

However, the words were not even from the current year, but were decades old. Perhaps Paul Harvey said it best when he stated, “In times like these, we need to remember that there have always been times like these.”

Amidst all that changes in our world, it is truth and principle that stays the same regardless of circumstances or time. One of the most enduring examples of the power of the human spirit committed to eternal values comes from World War II.

Victor Frankl was held as a prisoner in Auschwitz during the Holocaust. His family had been murdered and he was starved and beaten. However, when the Allies liberated the camps Frankl was without bitterness, refusing to be held captive to hatred.

He would go on to write Man’s Search for Meaning, a chronicle of what he learned about human nature in the darkness of war.

Asked how he lived with such peace and optimism after all he endured he shared his secret, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

There is much to learn from Frankl’s example, because no matter what takes place in life we can choose our response, we can choose the meaning we give to any event, and therein lays true power.

Emerson wrote, “A man is a hero, not because he is braver than anyone else, but because he is brave for ten minutes longer.” Indeed, there may always be times like this, but our response is an individual choice so may we choose wisely, regardless of where we live or where life has taken us.