As I wrap up my short lived vacation, life around me was not taking a break. In the first person sense, my divorce took a more dramatic turn, the impact of finding out only a week ago that I had a brother and the weight of having to be the one to push my family to come to terms with his existence and the decision to keep it from my sister and I for so long, weighed on me.
In the wider world, the spread of the Coronavirus and the tragic death of Kobe Bryant have put the fragility of life into perspective for many of us.
In times like these, when we are consumed with grief, hopelessness and feeling overwhelmed, there are different ways each of us cope. In my particular case, I attempt to change my frame of reference, to put my or other’s suffering into context in terms of the grand scale of human suffering that has occurred throughout history. This helps me to realize that whatever we are going through, it is not the worst thing that can happen or has ever happened to someone and that we can pull through and endure. Beyond this, we can even find meaning in suffering in tragedy and turn these into positives for ourselves and those around us.
Perspective Seeker
A friend of mine characterized my seeking to put suffering in a wider context as perspective seeking, and she called me a perspective seeker. One of the things I find comforting and perspective inducing, is to read about the Holocaust.
This dark period in history may be too depressing for many to read about but I have found that it has the opposite effect on me. Rather than getting me down, reading about the most depraved conditions that people have had to endure, makes me realize that my problems and many problems in general are trivial in this world in the face of what others have had to live through.
I put myself in the shoes of those that were transported to a camp like Auschwitz which was liberated 75 years ago today. All your material things taken from you, immediately separated from your friends and family upon arrival, tattooed with a number for your identity and then forced to work as slave labor with barely any food. All that is if you were lucky. If you were not fit enough for work; the old, the young the sick, you were immediately gassed and turned to ashes in the crematorium. Having a family, I think of what it could possibly be like to be separated from my family and have that happen to them while I live on, how would I find any meaning after such a thing happening?
Choosing How to React
One of the most influential books that I have picked up and which I often reference in this blog is Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Frankl was an Auschwitz survivor that had his entire family except one sibling murdered, this included his parents and his pregnant wife. In our current popular culture, we often feel that a motivational speaker has to have a rags to riches story, a story of severe hardship which they overcame in order to give them some legitimacy in our minds when they speak about overcoming the odds. We tend to think that if they have overcome that much, then I can certainly overcome these problems I have in front of me. For me, Viktor Frankl’s story, and the fact that after surviving Auschwitz, he wrote a book about finding meaning in each of our lives, was the overcoming hardship story that trumped them all. People have had bad things happen to them, but if this man can write a book about the will to live after enduring all of that, then surely all of us have the ability to overcome the challenges that face us, even the most painful and difficult ones.
In the case of loss, such as the loss of a loved one, acceptance that we cannot change the circumstance has to eventually take over. We cannot change the past and what happened. Rather, Frankl talks about the one freedom that everyone has left no matter how dire their circumstances: the freedom to choose how you react. For those that maintained their dignity and their humanity, no matter how dire the circumstances, many of them chose to maintain their sense of humanity towards others. Whether giving away their last piece of bread or comforting another inmate, this was their act of defiance against their wretched environment and circumstances. These people chose humanity and meaning despite the suffering and death around them.
Tragedy to Triumph
As I shared some of the quotes from Kobe Bryant, some of my Instagram followers messaged me saying how heartbroken they were, especially that he died with his daughter. I told one to see the small acts of significance that can be taken away from this. Even though Kobe and his daughter died, they had the chance to at least be with each other, perhaps even to say a few last words to each other. This is more than many of us may get and may have offered some sort of comfort to each other in those final moments. That this happened, fans, followers and loved ones cannot change. However you can choose what you take away from it. One of the positives has been seeing all the great social media posts remembering Bryant through his words stressing self improvement, perseverance and achieving your own personal greatness. Whether it is someone you know or someone you looked up to, the way to push their memory and legacy into the future is to change your own behavior in a way that pay tribute to their spirit. By this I mean that if someone’s passing really touched you, there is no better way to honor them then by changing your own behavior and letting their passing improve you in some way, even if it’s a small one.
Finding Meaning in Dire Circumstances
Finally, even when life is feeing hopeless, we can always find meaning in it. I was reminded of this when I recalled a close friend and what he explained to me about how he pushed himself to deal with the trauma of battle when he was involved in the invasion of Iraq and seemingly faced with death which could come at any day. He told me he made peace with being there by telling himself that he was there so his friends and family didn’t have to be, if he was to die it would be for that. This thinking allowed him to endure any conditions war could throw at him because it gave his suffering and any death that would come meaning. He told me he wasn’t alone in this respect, that everyone there each found there own meaning to be there.
This reminded me of a passage from Frankl’s book where he was called on to speak to those in his hut after they had starved all day. The reason they had starved is that an inmate at Auschwitz had broken into the store house and stolen some potatoes. The guards told the camp of 1,200 to give up the person who stole the potatoes or they would all starve for a day. The camp chose to starve. At night, Frankl was asked to give a speech to raise there spirits and he said:
Human life never ceases to have a meaning and that this meaning includes suffering, dying privation and death….The hopelessness of our struggle does not detract from its dignity and its meaning. Someone looks down on us in diffulcult hours, a friend, a wife, somebody alive or dead or a god, and he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly, not miserably, knowing how to die. And finally I spoke of our sacrifice, which had meaning in every case. It was in the nature of this sacfrice that it should appear to be pointless in the normal world, the world of material success. But in reality our sacrifice did have a meaning, those of us who had any religious faith could understand without difficulty. I told them of a comrade who upon arrival his arrival at camp, had tried to make a pact with heaven his suffering should save the human being he loved from a painful end. For this man suffering and death were meaningful. This was a sacrifice of the deepest significance, he did not want to die for nothing. None of us wanted that. The purpose of my words was to find a full meaning in our lives, then and there in that hut and in that practically hopeless situation.
Faced with tragedy and great adversity, our challenge is to find meaning. Take this time and difficult circumstances you may be in to find your meaning and it can empower you to withstand anything life can throw at you.
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