One of my clients encouraged me to read Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. I had the read the book years ago in university but this time, two points struck me particularly. Aside from the obvious account of man’s inhumanity to man. The first is his assertion that you can take everything away from a human – home, job, family, and as was the case with him, even his clothes in the concentration camp, but the last of the human freedoms can’t be taken and that is how a person might respond to any given situation.
Response to Situations
And isn’t that true for all of us? We can do nothing about what has happened to us up until this very moment, but what we decide to do from here forward, we have more control over. He went on to develop what he termed Logotherapy (from the Greek word logos = meaning) which states that man’s fundamental drive is to find meaning in our lives – what is personally meaningful.
The second point was his observation of the importance of goals. In the camps, those who had something to look forward to – family, a loved one, a job, tended to survive longer. Those who did not have a clear goal, or purpose out front of them, tended to die more quickly.
I know for myself it is easy to plateau. I had goals of getting a degree, getting married, studying with Hendrix, writing the book, etc. were achieved, but unless another goal was set, it was easy to plateau and coast. The only way we can coast is downhill.
A huge new goal for me is to impact one million couples. Believe me, I have no idea how that will happen but I am putting it out there. I know it won’t be by seeing clients individually which is what I have been doing for a long while. If any of you have ideas, I am open to suggestions.
