There Is Space
Viktor Frankl survived three years in a variety of concentration camps. His parents, siblings and pregnant wife all murdered in camps. Frankl wrote 33 books after freedom from the camps and the war ended. Among them was A Mans Search For Meaning and in it he writes:
“Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies out growth and our freedom.”
Frankl survived concentration camps and the trauma of losing everyone he loved not by luck or wishing it into existence. He did so because in the torture and vile treatment of him in the camps, he knew he had a choice. He took the hand he was dealt and made something of it. He could have committed suicide like many did. He could have tried to join the Nazi’s. He could have just wallowed and allowed his fate to be decided for him. He didn’t. He responded to this time in his life and used it as an experiment.
He not only saved his own life by the way he saw and reacted to what he was facing each day. Frankl also helped others inside the camps. He saved many from suicide. He helped many see freedom at the end of the war.
The lesson here is it doesn’t matter what hard time you face. You have space between being stimulated and responding. Granted, today, you aren’t sitting in a concentration camp facing death. Laying in a bed with feces or sharing a bed with a corpse. Frankl regained control of who he is and how he would handle his situation.
Meanwhile, today you lose control when your toddler wakes up at 3am or won’t go to bed when you say because you want to watch Netflix. You lose control when that work email comes through. You lose control because you’re sitting in traffic.
Really? Stop that.
Between your reaction and what happens there is space. In that space, take the time to properly respond to the events you face. It’s neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so, as Shakespeare said. Your reaction. Your perception. Those things matter more than what you face. It’s not what happens, but, how we respond.
What are your thoughts on this blog? Comment below…
Thought Provoking Questions : There is space between reaction and stimulus. How can you better use that space?
Daily I write and release a daily meditation. A quick read. Sharing wisdom and asking thought-provoking questions. Influenced by the obstacles, success and failures in my life and of others. Using history, books, current events, philosophy, and ancient wisdom. These writings are actionable, thought-provoking, designed to make your life better.
These writings are not to push a way of thinking on the reader or to force you into a certain philosophy or methodology. Rather to give you practical and real ways to handle life. This is an added tool. My writing is simply a discussion, a discourse, with all the material I read, watch, hear and consume.