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The Last of Human Freedoms

For Impact Ideas | | Tom Suddes

“When all the familiar goals in life are snatched away … what alone remains is the last of human freedoms: the ability to choose one’s ATTITUDE in a given set of circumstances.”  – Viktor Frankl

My wonderful niece, Caitlin, just sent me a note referencing MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING.

Man's Search for Meaningmsm_date

This book has been labeled “one of the 10 most influential books in America” by the Library of Congress. My copy is dated April 1996/Trip Around the World.

Viktor E. Frankl was imprisoned in concentration camps for three years during World War II.  The inside flap states that Frankl began to wonder why some of his fellow prisoners were able not only to survive the horrifying conditions, but to grow in the process.

His conclusion — that the most basic human motivation is the will to meaning — which became the basis of his groundbreaking psychological theory, logotherapy.

At FOR IMPACT, we’re always pursuing the idea of purpose and meaning.  This is one of the greatest books of all time that reinforces that ‘search’.

Frankl was very fond of quoting Nietzsche,

“He who has a WHY to live can bear with almost any HOW.”

Just another reason to always start with the WHY.