Quote of the Week...from Viktor Frankl

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 our freedom.                       ---Viktor Frankl

Viktor Frankl was a Jewish concentration camp survivor during Hitler's Nazi-instigated Holocaust who became a renowned psychologist and author of more than 60 books.  His most famous, Man's Search for Meaning, focuses on the notion that as humans we always have choices in life...even during times of extreme limitation and suffering, such as in a concentration camp.  It is this enhanced capacity for choice that distinguishes us in our humanity from other animals, who are much more tightly controlled by stimulus and response.  But as Frankl says, no matter the provocation or brief the time for reaction, we still have that moment to determine our own destinies and select which response to make.  Of course, we can also cop out and let habitual reactions run our days as well...but that is also a choice, isn't it?  I first heard of Viktor Frankl and his approach late in high school English class...a rare learning experience for me there.  And this past week, podcaster Rob Dial used the above quote of his to hammer home important points. Sometimes I think we have to chisel out new "shortcut" personal habits that allow us to recognize our ability to choose when those provocations inevitably arise.  For me I'm working on automatically speaking the work "choice" when such adverse things happen in different settings and circumstances...I'm thinking of traffic and the workplace as prime locales to implement this.  And then, of course, I choose, hopefully, a higher path...