Responsible.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

Viktor Frankel, from Man's Search for Meaning

Responsible.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

Viktor E. Frankl, from Man's Search for Meaning

Power.

As usual, Steve's pointing to wisdom ...

But no human being can be trusted to keep his or her word when he or she has access to power—a power not available to opponents. 

Dr. Frankl would remind us ...

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 freedom.

What power is truly eluding you? 

Witness.

Steve points to timely wisdom ...

To bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best.

Essential.

ParkeHarrison, The Navigator, 2002

Steve points to essential wisdom ...

Sahil Bloom

Vulnerability is contagious (and breeds strength).

Epictetus

We don't abandon our pursuits because we despair of ever perfecting them.

Marcus Aurelius

Look at the inmost causes of things, stripped of their husks; note the intentions that underlie actions; study the essences of pain, pleasure, death, glory; observe how man's disquiet is all of his own making, and how troubles come never from another's hand, but like all else are creatures of our own opinion.

Viktor Frankl

What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it.  In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.

David R. Hawkins

Let go of feeling guilty that you are still just an ordinary human despite your angelic ambitions!  Having compassion towards your innate humanness, its nervous system, and the brain function that goes with it allows for greater equanimity. 

Constantly.

Willard, Yankee Doodle, 1876

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

Viktor E. Frankl, from Man's Search for Meaning

Responsible.

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes - within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.

By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic, "the self-transcendence of human existence." It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself--be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself--by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love--the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.

Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Every library should contain this book.

Finest.

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

Viktor E. Frankl, from Man's Search for Meaning

Execupundit has human beings behaving rightly, with dignity, respect, and decorum ...

Responsible.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

Viktor Frankel, from Man's Search for Meaning

Space.

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 freedom.

Viktor Frankl

Power.

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 freedom.

Viktor Frankl

Excellent.

An excellent book ...

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

Viktor E. Frankl, from Man's Search for Meaning

Beyond.

Monet, The Studio Boat, 1876

Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.

Viktor E. Frankl, from Man's Search for Meaning

Choose.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Viktor Frankl

Choose.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.

Victor Frankl

Actualized.

To invoke an analogy, consider a movie: it consists of thousands upon thousands of individual pictures, and each of them makes sense and carries a meaning, yet the meaning of the whole film cannot be seen before its last sequence is shown. However, we cannot understand the whole film without having first understood each of its components, each of the individual pictures. Isn’t it the same with life? Doesn’t the final meaning of life, too reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death? And doesn’t this final meaning, too, depend on whether or not the potential meaning of each single situation has been actualized to the best of their respective individual’s knowledge and belief?

Victor Frankl

Decisions.

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes -- within the limits of endowment and environment-- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions not on conditions.

Viktor Frankl

Own.

Human freedom is finite freedom. Man is not free from conditions. But he is free to take a stand in regard to them. The conditions do not completely condition him. Although our existence is influenced by instincts, inherited disposition and environment, an area of freedom is always available to us. Everything can be taken from a man, but the last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any a given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Dr. Viktor Frankel

Change.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

Viktor E. Frankl

Idealism and the search for meaning ...

Choose.

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks, which it constantly sets for each individual.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude at any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

Viktor Frankl

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