This blog was inspired by the book 'Man's Search For Meaning' by Victor Frankl
"Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure or a quest for power, but a quest for meaning."
-Victor Frankl
With wisdom from Victor Frankl and his book 'Man's Search For Meaning', I hope we can see that through our pain and suffering, we can find meaning and purpose with our lives. I'm sure we have all felt pain and suffering whether it be physical, emotional or mental. It cannot be escaped as life is balance of all. Every human being will bear their share of sorrow and burden, some more than others but suffering will be dealt to everyone. How many times have we questioned it, how many times have we asked 'why me'? How many times have we complained and condemned what we have no control of? Have we ever thought to shine light on our suffering to see its true meaning, to use it to identify what is truly meaningful and fulfilling to us. Suffering does not come with no intention, it arrives only when there is something that we have not been paying attention to, something that we have not transcended. When we suffer, there is a purpose to it.
"Suffering in and of itself is meaningless, we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it."
- Victor Frankl
In any type of suffering, we may feel that we are heavily and unavoidably controlled by what our external circumstances are. If we believe this, doesn't that make us just a product of external circumstance and environment, are we no better than what we see outside us? What happened to our spiritual freedom, do we not have the freedom to act and react, to control our behaviour to any given circumstance. It has be shown, especially through the experiences of Frankl, that we, as human beings, do have the choice to escape the traps of our suffering. We can indeed, hold an independent mind and carry our spiritual freedom with us. We do have a choice of action that we can preserve regardless of circumstance.
Everything can be taken away from us except for our freedom of choice, our freedom to choose the attitude we face our suffering with. Everything we encounter offers us a choice we can make, it offers us a choice of what attitude we bring. We have a choice to make that will determine whether or not we will be controlled and robbed of our very self, whether or not we submit our souls to circumstance or whether or not we hold ourselves strong in the face of suffering, to stand tall and stay true to what we know inside our hearts. The sort of person we become is and always will be the result of an inner decision, not external situation.
A question was posed in the book which asked whether or not we are worthy of our suffering. As I mentioned above, suffering always comes with an intention. Something needs to be done on our behalf, life is asking something from us. When we suffer, our thoughts lead down the path where we expect nothing from life anymore, but what if life is expecting something from us, how will we answer? What does it mean to be worthy of our suffering? This is where our last inner freedom comes into play, the decision to live up to ourselves and not bow down to any circumstance that threatens to rob our soul, our human dignity, morals and everything else we hold in our hearts. If we are able to suffer with dignity, to bear and accept our suffering without wavering our hearts, to learn and grow from our suffering, then we will be worthy of our suffering. Our hearts and souls are worthy to bear the lessons for us and continue to triumph. If there is any purpose to life at all, than there must be a purpose in suffering, as suffering is inevitable. This spiritual freedom is what can make suffering purposeful.
The way we accept our sufferings and the attitude we carry with us through it gives us an opportunity to add deeper meaning to our lives. It is either we stay dignified and centred or we lose our dignity and ourselves in the midst of the fight, but either way, there lies a chance that we can make use or let go of these opportunities to attain the moral values a difficult situation presents us. This decides whether we are worthy of our suffering.
Everyone's fate is different, everyone's purpose is different and everyone finds meaning differently. There is no two lives that are the same, no two fates that are the same. Every life is unique and it would be foolish to compare and question. When it is accepted that it is a part of our fate to suffer, we can see the unique opportunity that presents itself in the way that we bear our suffering. Everytime we face adversity, someone is looking down on us hoping to see that we are suffering bravely with courage instead of suffering miserably, hoping that we can surpass this test of human dignity and proudly overcome these sufferings knowing that we will always have the spiritual freedom of choosing who we are.
"We are never left with nothing as long as we retain the freedom to choose how we will respond."
- Victor Frankl
Comments