Man's Last Freedom

I have come to realize that there is so much more to life that what we actually see. And, we will never actually understand any of it. We have not been in the circumstances to fully comprehend the tragedies of this world, this earth. What a human being is able to do to another. Human beings are such fragile things, yet at the same time we are resilient and determined to fight tooth and nail when we have something to fight and hope for. 

Where there is hope there is this glimmer of strength that springs forth from our inner core. I will never be able to experience this to the fullest, but I am blessed in that sense. I get to hope and have freedom at no cost to me without fear of death. I have faith in a God that heals and provides for his people with no commendation for others. You are all probably wondering why am I talking about such things? Right? Well, I just finished reading Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and it was an eye opener. To the things that human beings are capable of, both good and bad.

There were people that had it so much worse than us at the hands of their fellow countrymen during WWII. It got me thinking, would we be able to see the hope in those conditions? Would I have been able to be as upbeat and positive in that circumstance as I am now? How these men and woman make us look so insignificant. They fought tooth and nail for just a glimmer of hope while we have it at our finger tips every day and choose to ignore it. We choose to take it for granted and complain when some stupid thing goes wrong. We have the opportunity for greatness that many of them never got the chance to experience. Yet here we are sitting back and taking it for granted.

Maybe that is too long ago for some of you. How about a more recent event? Let's go to the 1970's in the country of Cambodia. Where the Khmer Rouge took control of the country by force. They then murdered any opposition to their beliefs as well as throwing people into prison and camps. Fellow countrymen attacking and even killing each other. Sound eerily familiar? What we don't learn from the past we are doomed to repeat. I think for me personal, what makes this one more vivid is the fact that I've walked through this country. I have seen the places made into prison. I have seen the fields where people lost their lives. Yet, like the Jewish people, Cambodians are resilient and full of hope. 

Both of these events just further support Victor Frankl's belief 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, to choose one's own way." 

I have come to two conclusions:

First, I know that I will never understand the pain and suffering they had to endure. But, I do know that I am willing to endure suffering if it means giving hope to someone else even if it is just one person. Can you imagine what taking the time to stop and help them with something simple could have done for them? Just think what picking them up when they had fallen meant for a prisoner in a concentration camp. Hope. It meant hope! That there were people out there that cared. That their life had some meaning to it because you took the time to do something as simple as that. You stopped and you saw them. Simple things, small things make all the difference. It gives people hope to keep fighting even if the future seems bleak. 

Second, that I have the choice to determine my attitude. That no matter the situation or circumstance I have it, I have the freedom to decide how to respond to it. No one has the power to take that away or decide how I will respond. That is fully my choice, and that shouldn't be taken lightly. How we react to a circumstance could change the course of not only our lives, but the lives of others around us. Either for the good, or for the bad. I have heard it said that there are two wolves living inside each of us. One is light. The other is darkness. And the one you feed is the one that survives. Which one will we choose to feed? What type of people are we wanting to become?

Are we willing to become the people of hope? The people that defy the majority for those that need that glimmer of hope. We know what we are capable of and what it takes. What are we waiting for? Someone else to do it. What if God called you, me to do it? To break the mold of society and go against the flow. Because, let's be honest, standing up to Hitler was definitely going against the flow.

I just want to leave you with this passage from Frankl’s book.

“You may be prone to blame me for invoking examples that are the exceptions to the rule. ‘Sed omnia praeclara tam difficilia quam rara sunt’ (but everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find) reads the last sentence of the Ethics of Spinoza. You may of course ask whether we really need to refer to ‘saints.’ Wouldn’t it suffice just to refer to decent people? It is true that they form a minority. More than that, they always will remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge to join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.

So, let us be alert – alert in a twofold sense:

Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.

Since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.” 

- Man’s Search For Meaning: Viktor E. Frankl