The Power of If (Part 3)

Saturday 17 October 2009 - Filed under gaps + thoughts

One of life’s most character revealing gaps, that brief moment between provocation and reaction, is solemnly illustrated by Viktor Emil Frankl M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Frankl was a psychiatrist, a Holocaust survivor, and author of the book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning.’ In September of 1942, Dr. Frankl, his wife, and parents were imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he would spend the next two and half years of his life. Reflecting upon this cruel backdrop, he states, “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.”

Our choices not only reveal our nature, but are the very building blocks of our character. Regardless of our circumstances, we have the God given right and responsibility to choose how we respond. It is in our daily choices that we incrementally move ourselves toward ultimate freedom or shackle ourselves to the dictates of others. Dr. Frankl’s observation personifies the power of choice, “everything can be taken from a man 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.”

In the second four lines of the first stanza of his poem, ‘If’, Rudyard Kipling presents less ominous opportunity for character building choice…

“If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:”

The choices put to us by Kipling seem insignificant when compared to the ones Victor Frankl faced. However, it is small bricks of choice that form the foundation of our character. A foundation more apt to survive the truly tough times if daily choices are made more wisely. -Russ

Eight lines down and twenty-four to go.

(Sources: Man’s Search for Meaning) – Available on Amazon

2009-10-17  »  Russ Leseberg