Nothing To Live For January 14, 2009
Posted by theguyoutsidethewalls in Hope.Tags: Christianity, Depression, Gay, Gay Catholic, Gay Christian, gay spirituality, Hope, Nazi Germany, Religion, Spirituality, Viktor Frankl
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Did you ever get to a point in life where you thought the best of your life was in the past and that there was nothing much to live for? Or, have you known someone who has been at that point?
Last night I continued reading Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search For Meaning. I usually keep several books of this nature open and slowly read them, kind of like meditations. For some reason last night I was beckoned to pick up Frankl’s book. Viktor Frankl was a psychologist who was imprisoned in a Nazi Concentration Camp for several years. His book describes firsthand what it was like to be a prisoner in such a setting and how, from Frankl’s perspective, people coped with this horrid situation. Frankl saw prisoner after prisoner die . . . after they had lost hope. He describes a lack of hope almost as a death sentence. What struck me in what he said is the way that such a lack of hope was turned around.
Most who lost hope thought that life had nothing more in store for them. But Frankl renewed hope not in thinkng about life having nothing more in store FOR him, but in what life was still asking OF him. Some unforeseen contribution to life or loved ones was still to be made. And this kept him going.
Life may at times bring us down and we may feel that there is nothing more to live for. But there is always something that Life is still asking of us. And who knows what our contribution is yet to be?
You just asked a very original philosophical question:
And who knows what our contribution is yet to be?