“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.” -Victor Frankl, MD
Are you frequently angry? Irritated? Full of rage? Sad? Scared?
Have you responded angrily in a text message? Yelled at someone? Tried to choke them? Have you done something stupid that you regretted later?
Victor Frankl is one of my doctor heroes. He was a psychiatrist who was imprisoned in the Nazi death camps in Germany. There he experienced a lot of horrible and repugnant things. Things so horrible it makes one sick to the stomach to hear them. He later founded logotherapy, which is a form of existential analysis that is focused on the meaning of human existence as well as on man’s search for meaning. His work, publicized in his classic book, Man’s Search for Meaning, illustrates clearly the centrality and universality of meaning as a motivation in human life.
Frankl’s quote, above, gives tremendous freedom to anyone who has ever reacted stupidly and done things they regretted later. It says, you are in control. You have the power. When that stimulus hits your heart like a bullet, when it launches at you like a whirlwind, you don’t have to immediately lose control. You have time to choose how to respond. It is in your interest to respond calmly and wisely in a way that doesn’t cause you to lose your nerves. It’s in your interest not to let external forces control your mood and your actions. You can choose your response. You can be calm even under fire. That’s how you win!
Anyone who can press your buttons and control you has you in the palm of their hands. You are their puppet. But you can take back that control by choosing your response. You can take back your power by choosing to act in ways that affirm the person in you that you want to become more of.
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