If Victor Frankl decided to let the overwhelming odds that he wouldn’t survive the concentration camps he was sent to in 1942 stop his will to live, the world wouldn’t have access to his work on psychiatry, meaning, and religion. But he didn't.
It’s not easy to be outside the mind and independent of our circumstances. But it is possible. Thankfully, the challenges we face pale in comparison to the horrors of a World War. And even in minor things, we can capture our thoughts and feelings then act.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
- Victor Frankl
Easier said than done? Sure. But who promised life would be easy?
That’s being objective. Having an objective is also important.
I was recently introduced to Plato and Aristotle’s philosophical work on Teleology, which comes from the Greek telos which means ‘end’ or ‘purpose’.
Here’s a helpful breakdown of the concept from Vocabulary.com:
“The philosophy itself suggests that acts are done with a foregone purpose in mind - people do things knowing the result they wish to achieve”
I still have plenty of reading to do on that subject, but life so far has taught me that having an objective and knowing the why behind the what I happen to be doing is important to know.
Read 2. Learn something new every day
