Attitude
“Everything
can be taken away from a [person] 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.”
Viktor
Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)
Man's Search for Meaning,
written by Frankl after his experiences in a German concentration
camp during World War II, is still a classic, and still true. Many of
us cannot choose to do whatever we want. Too often we are limited by
the opportunities not granted. We may have suffered losses early in
life, and aren't able to overcome them. Some of us have been
systematically disenfranchised. The only thing left to us is the
strength of our own will. But, according to Frankl, that is enough.
No one can take away our ability to decide for ourselves how we will
respond to whatever life throws at us.
Frankl discovered that
the people who survived those camps where the ones who found meaning
in their presence there. They found a purpose for themselves, and
acted on it. They possessed a potent survival instinct, a determined
spirit, that gave them the strength to hang on until the camps were
liberated. Often, that meaning centered on service to others. Even in
the desolation of a concentration camp, they managed to be of service
to their fellow prisoners.
Our attitude determines
how we will experience every minute of every day. We can always find
something to gripe about—even when nothing overtly terrible in
going on in our lives, we complain about the weather, or our aching
joints, or our neighbor up the street who lets her dog poop on other
people's property. There's an endless bounty of things to moan and
groan about. It doesn't help us to do that, but we do it anyway. If
we don't like something (speaking for myself here) we rarely keep it
to ourselves. With this attitude, the whole world becomes “they”
and “they are the enemy.” And suddenly, we become the oppressed
ones. That game is being played a lot these days. Unfortunately,
oppressed people are not happy people; nor are they delightful people
to be around. Expecting the world to change so that I won't be
“oppressed” is likely to end in disappointment. Luckily, I can
change that—I can change my attitude.
We can change our
experience of the world by becoming aware of how our attitude affects
our emotions, not to mention our health. We cannot experience joy if
we are determined to be victims. We cannot be healthy in a toxic
environment of our own making. We can't solve the problems of the
world, but we can change our approach to them from griping and
complaining, to action for change. We can find meaning for ourselves
in addressing one small, crippling aspect—our own bad attitude. I
admit, I love to moan and groan as much as anybody, but I'm going to
work on giving it up. I hope you will join me in that effort.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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