Your World Within Podcast by Eddie Pinero - The One Thing That Can't Be Taken Away

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way." - Viktor Frankl In this episode, Eddie delves into one of the central themes in Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning:" The idea that no matter how dyer or challenging your external situation becomes, your perspective will always remain your power. Sure life is unpredictable. It will present its peaks, valleys, ups and downs. But your hope, self belief and ability to find the positive (or light in darkness, as Viktor states) will supersede any situation, and leave you a different person coming out than you were when you went in.

Welcome to Your World Within Daily. I'm Eddie Panero. And in this episode, we're going to talk about the book Man Search for Meaning. And the idea that it's not so much our external situation as it is, our thoughts about it and the decisions we make. I finished reading Man Search for Meaning a few days ago. One of the most powerful books I've read. And there are a lot of topics. And I imagine I'll be diving into them over the coming weeks. here and there. But I think the central premise of the book, and one of the most important themes,

is around man's ability to control his attitude and his emotions. So I'm going to read you a quote specifically. He says, everything can be taken from a man but one thing. The last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one's own way. Beautifully, beautifully put, now this, Victor Frankel went through absolute hell, right? The first half, three quarters of the book, you know, he's talking about going through concentration camp in World War II. He was at Auschwitz. and basically reduced to an animal.

I mean, the way they treated these people, and he goes into a lot of it, a lot of it we already know, we've read about, we've heard about. I mean, it's beyond imagination. But he's able to, and this is the part that's truly mind-blowing, you know, find glimmers of light, of hope throughout the experience. you know there's one part that that man again blows my mind where he's talking about after he gets out right after they're liberated there's a magazine cover that shows some of the the people that were

in camp right in their bunks starved in the middle of the night right someone's walking in and the picture is of although people kind of peering out from their bunks and looking at the person walking in at least that's how i understood it and And he was saying how people commented, wow, you know, those poor things, look at what they're going through, look at the horror in their faces. And as someone who lived through that, Victor was genuinely confused, right? He was like, why? Why do you feel bad for them? Right? That was one of the good times. We weren't outside freezing. We weren't getting hit. We weren't getting beaten or, you know, trying to dig up icy ground. we were relatively warm in our bunks. And so, you know, he learned to, like, learn to appreciate even in that type of environment, that type of hell, some good. And it brings, you know, it puts things into perspective.

You know, we have this idea that things are so hard, right, when we have our ups and downs, because we all do. In fact, he states suffering is like a gas. It fills every human, every human soul. And we need it to overcome what we're going to overcome. That's part of being human. But if he can find joy in that moment, how can we not, you know, whatever our situation is? Just a powerful, beautiful way of putting it.

And so taking this full circle, no matter how dim or dire the situation, you have have that power, that ability to see life as it is. An inherently good thing. His meaning, his purpose, which was that book, carried him through. It was his spark of hope. And that could not be taken away from him. Just like no matter what's going on around you, your outlook can't be taken away from you. That's yours.

That's when the unpredictability of life occurs, when the walls feel like they're crashing down, when there's things you can't control, which happens. You were always left with the thing that you can. Your outlook and the belief that, even if they throw the book at you, you'll find a way, you'll see the positive.

You'll find that light in darkness. It's a beautiful, beautiful mentality, beautiful mindset, and I think one that we should all be more cognizant. So if you enjoy this podcast, if you get value from it, I greatly appreciate you to subscribe, rate, leave a review. Helps me get this to the world, and that is my goal, so greatly appreciated. Have an amazing day.

I'll catch you guys tomorrow.