Mm Ping.

Imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, these camps were disgusting places full of torture, pain and suffering.

Chances of surviving were at most.

One in 28 prisoners found themselves rejoicing at the site of a few peas in an otherwise water bowl of soup.

If that's the happiest part of someone's day, it says a lot about how much they're suffering prisoners, often worried about the well being of their family and friends who had been separated from them.

It's hard to even imagine the suffering that the prisoners went through amidst their suffering.

Many prisoners contemplated, and many performed suicide.

But running into the electric fences, the's prisoners see staff hope they saw no future for themselves.

They felt that their lives had become meaningless and had lost the will to live.

On the other hand, some prisoners, like Victor, were able to find meaning in their suffering.

In a world where people will commonly say, Why me whenever something bad happens, I wanted to find out how someone could persevere through one of the darkest periods in human kind and find an answer to that question for themselves.

Prior to World War two, essential ism was a fairly standard belief.

This was the idea that we're born with an essence and essence can be considered as a part of a person or thing that defines them.

Without that defining quality, they would no longer be that think.

For example, the specific sperm and egg that made me are a part of my essence.

If it were a different sperm or a different egg, I would no longer be me.

Some philosophers believed that is a part of our essence.

We were born with a purpose.

The atrocities witnessed during World War Two really made humanity.

Question this.

It's understandable to question whether life really has a predestined meaning.

If all someone experiences is suffering after World War two, the concept of existentialism became much more widespread.

Existentialism is the idea that were born without a purpose and that were left to define our own.

This is often stated as existence precedes, essence were born first into meaningless world, and then we define our own meaning.

Some people think that existentialism is a depressing view of the world because it says the world has no ultimate and objective meaning.

Others disagree.

They may see it as a beautiful and liberating philosophy, one that allows them to find a potentially infinite amount of meaning in the world and gives them the freedom to define that for themselves every second, every minute, every hour of every day.

They have the ability to define a new meaning for themselves.

A new reason to live existentialism was the key philosophy that allowed Victor Frankel to find meaning in his suffering during his time in concentration camps.

To quote him when we're no longer able to change the situation, just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer were challenged to change ourselves.

Existentialists have the ability to taken adversity and overcome it or empower themselves by giving it meaning.

As circumstances change, they give themselves the freedom to change their meanings and attitude.

They don't ask life what its meaning is, but they're constantly being asked by life.

How they choose to live is their answer.

Frankel argues that humans do not seek attention less state.

In fact, attention less state can result.

In another problem, the victor called the existential vacuum, a complete lack of purpose or meaninglessness in life.

Victor argues that it's within this vacuum that depression, aggression and addiction can rise.

I believe that Victor were argued that in order to overcome this dilemma, a certain amount of tension is required.

But this tension must be worth overcoming for the individual.

So it's not about avoiding suffering or stress at all costs, but finding meaning and suffering or finding something worth suffering for.

I think this quote by Victor beautifully summarizes the key.

Take away between stimulus and response.

There's a space in that space is our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Think of someone being cut off in rush hour traffic in between the impulse that being cut off and their reaction, there's a space in this space.

They have the ability to choose the reaction to that impulse in the same way there's a space between our suffering and our reaction to it.

We have the ability to choose our reaction and give new meaning to our suffering.

In a way, we become worthy of our suffering.

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