“Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedom – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
– Viktor E. Frankl
The ultimate freedom is choice, and we always have a choice. With each choice, can then choose again, and again.
Viktor Frankl was a young Jewish psychologist in a concentration camp in the last months of World War II. As he awaited the “final solution”, he saw the guards systematically attempting to strip away all vestiges of what made him and those around him feel human, to feel humanity for self and others. Frankl responded from a place of choice. He did not react, he responded, he chose how to respond to those external stimuli. He chose to remain human, in thought and deed. In that way, he remained free.
No matter how stuck we feel, how constrained, we can always choose how we respond.
People are my library, my inspiration, a source for so much learning. This week I was supporting someone seeking clarity on their personal “why”. Within that process I talked to them about Frankl, hence choosing to once again share some of his wisdom.