In my Decade of the 1960's class we were ask to right a reflective paper on any subject and how it had traits of the 60's and self reflection.
I chose to read the book Mans Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. Victor Frankl survived Auschwitz and the book is how he survived, I won't go much into here other then what is posted below in the paper I wrote.
If you are having a bad time in your life I suggest very highly you find this book and read it, it's actually only 100 pages, you may find one larger however it goes on to tell about his work in logotheory. Just read the first part and reflect back on your life.
Mans Search for Meaning
People of today are so focused on themselves that they have lost what is really important to them and that is themselves that which makes them who they are. Many today are of the mind set that everything must be given and not earned, that it is everyman for themselves and to look out to those who got in their way. We have lost that sense of helping our fellow man, even if that means we have to give up something of ourselves. Frankl showed that by giving a little there is more to be rewarded with.
What resonated through the book was that Frankl never challenged fate, as he stated upon arrival at Auschwitz, “I just waited for things to take their course, the first of many such times to come”. This again was poignant near the end when they the Nazi’s where arranging transport to the rest camp, when the camp doctor had told him “I have made it known in the orderly room that you can take you can still have your crossed off the list; you may do so up till ten o’clock.”, Frankl replied, “that this is not my way; that I have learned to let fate take it’s course.” Fate dealt him the correct choice, for as he said cannibalism had broken out in his old camp due to famine, had he decided to tempt fate, would Frankl have survived to tell his story?
People today are forever trying to plan out their lives down to the very minute; always planning for this or that and when their plans fail they always will blame the other guy for their own failures. I realized that I to have been guilty of this many a time and after so many failures I decided that I too would just let fate or natures take its course.
Which leads into another aspect that Frankl was dead on about in that to make it through life you had to change fundamentally your way of thinking about life and that is what was life expecting from us? What is life expecting from us, does it expect that we will always make the right choices or have the correct answers? It expects from us that we will find the right answers and that life is concrete and so are the choice we make each and everyday. Frankl and his camp mates had to make the correct choices each day. I reflected on that section of the reading for quite awhile when I realized I too have to make those same choices each and every day. Do I take the easy way out and therefore make the incorrect choice and breeze through the task or do I make the correct choice and suffer through it, to know that in the end the right choice was made.
Struggles were a daily occurrence; this was so brilliantly illustrated when on the evening of their day of fasting due not ratting out the prisoner who had stolen some potatoes. As the men lay in their huts struggling to survive and to comprehend the day’s actions the lights went out, and morale sank lower. The block warden had started a discussion on how many of their mates had died in the last few days either from sickness or suicide, and that the main reason for this was that the men had given simply given up. The warden then asked Frankl to give some advice on how not to lose hope. As Frankl explained he was in no mood to give psychological advice; he to was tired, cold, irritable, and hungry. However he knew that encouragement was needed at that time. He talked of trivial comforts, the future, sacrifice and the subject I found to be the most memorable was opportunities of giving life meaning, he told his mates, “that human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death,” he went on to say, “that someone looks down on each of us in difficult hours—a friend, a wife, somebody alive or dead, or a God—and he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly—not miserably—knowing how to die.”
How many of us have sat there waiting to die, and not in the physical sense? There are times when perhaps we have made a mistake at home and just wanted to disappear and wish it never happened. Then there are those that are sitting there just waiting to die, for they feel helpless, sad, and alone that no one cares. We all must remember that despite how we feel there is always someone who cares about us. Don’t be that friend that after s loved one ends their life that you realized that just before they were crying out to be saved by the small gestures, such as giving things away, taking trips or people out for expensive dinners. Be the person looking down from above and when needed give that person the reason to suffer proudly.
Another poignant reflection that Frankl discusses is when he was walking back from a work detail when he begin to think of all the issues at hand, will there be enough food tonight, what if he got an extra piece of sausage should he trade it for something else? He finally as he put became disgusted with the state of affairs and forced himself to turn to thoughts of other things where he found himself speaking to an audience about psychology of the concentration camp. It takes a very wise man in the conditions that Frankl found himself in to take himself out of his current situation and place himself somewhere totally different and to find that he was talking of his own experiences.
What can be said about fate? People are says let fate takes its course; this was purely evident in way that Frankl led his life while in the camps. Fate saved him from cannibalism, and in the end just before the liberation of the camp from being burned alive at the other camp where the prisoners were taken. Fate was Frankl’s side from the beginning and that is what got him through the three years and multiple camps.
Through out reading this book, I reflected on my own life and the trials and tribulations that I have been through they all pale in comparison. How can I complain because I ran out of bread and didn’t have the fore thought to buy more when I was at the store, when all Frankl wanted was just a little more to eat a pea from the bottom of the soup pot and extra piece of bread, or meat.
The point that I find is that I cannot control what is around me I can only control my thoughts. When I have thoughts or feeling of despair I need to remove myself from those situations and let my mind wander. This will allow then to pass into the past where I can learn from them. I highly recommend this book to anyone, no matter their feelings at the time, we can all learn from it.
These are my thoughts and my thoughts alone
