so blessed. day twenty seven
I'm in the middle of another great book that my sister-in-law wrapped up for me for Christmas. Keep sending them my way, Janet! Loving them! It's Viktor E. Frankl's, "Man's Search for Meaning." Definitely a read with hi-lighter in hand kind of a book because there are some powerful truths here.
During World War II, Frankl, a psychiatrist, spent three years as a prisoner in various concentration camps and survives to write his observations of how he and his fellow prisoners responded to their unbelievably horrific circumstances.
Some lines worth remembering (and, note to self, worth applying!):
"We could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and vegetate...
...In the concentration camp, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions...
...Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."
With that said, blessed with opportunities to overcome. Blessed with the freedom to make decisions. And blessed by examples of those that have triumphed over their circumstances......... for giving us all a higher definition of "realistic" that we can believe in.
During World War II, Frankl, a psychiatrist, spent three years as a prisoner in various concentration camps and survives to write his observations of how he and his fellow prisoners responded to their unbelievably horrific circumstances.
Some lines worth remembering (and, note to self, worth applying!):
"We could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and vegetate...
...In the concentration camp, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions...
...Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."
With that said, blessed with opportunities to overcome. Blessed with the freedom to make decisions. And blessed by examples of those that have triumphed over their circumstances......... for giving us all a higher definition of "realistic" that we can believe in.
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