What if I told you that each of us has a super power that we need to learn to use right now? The book Man's Search for Meaning, written by neurologist holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl, talks about it as "the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." When I read this book a few months ago, I thought everyone had to read it. Now that we're facing a global crisis, I feel like everyone needs to read it now! :)
I've noticed that this has become a time of reflection for many people. Rather than catching up on my projects, I spent a good chunk of the week talking and reconnecting with people over their pain and struggles. As we're being quarantined--some of us finding ourselves suddenly unemployed, others of us going mad just trying to find sanity over toilet paper, while others yet are battling the fatigue for being on the frontlines of care, or fighting just to stay alive--some of us are struggling to find meaning in our sufferings and many have felt without hope.
But all is not lost! This book teaches us many lessons, including how to find meaning in pain and proving that the power to choose is greater than we imagine--it's our great super power!
I hope that as you go through these difficult times, you choose to respond with courage, kindness, compassion, integrity, learning, and growing. Frankl says, "To life, [man] can only respond by being responsible." No, it's not easy. But great accomplishments are only great because they're hard.
Frankl says, "At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence." What will be yours?