If you haven't read Victor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning, then I think you should. The next time you think life sucks, imagine being in a prison camp. Imagine what it must feel like to know that everyone you love has died or is dying, that the probability of survival of the situation you are in has very low odds. You are hungry, tired and worked tirelessly and beaten frequently. And somewhere in this hell, you choose to survive.
As I reflect on what enabled this man to choose survival I realize some fundamental things. He did not have anything to give up. He did not have a loved one he was trying to please... they were all dead. He did not have a comfortable salary and home to go home to at the end of the day. He had squalor and hard planks to sleep on with no blankets. It was rock bottom; there was no safety net, no comforts, no disappointing anyone.
It takes great faith to believe that no matter what, risking any of this will be for the best, especially when I do not even have a clear picture of what that looks like or see a path. Maybe it just needs to get that uncomfortable and that dark before we have faith in the light, our own light.
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