Victor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, author, founder of Logotherapy and Holocaust survivor (Wikipedia.). I first read his book Man’s Search for Meaning in the late 80s as an undergraduate student. I have read it many times since and am still developing the principles he so valiantly and courageously captured during his own experiences.
Specifically, Frankl says that our last true freedom as humans is our ability to choose our response to any given situation. All else can be taken or lost. But if we use our minds, we can choose our experience (see Man’s Search for Meaning for more.). Frankl encourages us to stop short of reacting to any situation, and “choose” our next action (including the story we are telling ourselves about it) rather than run on auto pilot and just respond.
The ways in which this one idea has influenced my life cannot be overstated. Having buried children, suffered chronic physical illness and faced the many challenges of navigating life with Zach, the impact of this core life strategy has indeed given me freedoms that I wouldn’t have expected possible.
Fast forward to last evening: As I have shared, I generally spend non-work hours with Zach, relieving his Dad of a full COVID remote day at home, and we go driving. For the last several days we have had the unexpected good fortune of having my Mom up from FL. She has a home here and along with his Dad and Me, Zach’s Nana is one of his favorite people.
Since Nana was in town she offered to take the “Monday evening drive” off of my hands and once finished, bring him to my home so we could still see each other. I would then drive Zach home as I normally do, and did just that.
Moments into our arrival back at Zach’s house, he asked for his iPad. When I sought to remove it from the charger, it wasn’t there. My stomach did flips as I realized not only was the iPad not there, but neither were any of his other electronics. Either his “green bag” as we call it, was still in Nana’s car, or worse, it made its way into my home without me noticing, and was still there.
We called Nana and she confirmed, she brought it into my kitchen and left it on the counter. Zach’s green bag and its contents are like his Oxygen. He has his iPad, headphones, iPhone, chargers and these items are his access to the outside world, especially during COVID (#grateful for technology!)
For a short 30 seconds I thought: “UGH! I can’t drive all the way home, then all the way back, then all the way home again. I am too tired. I will need to get gas and I wanted to get to bed early.” And on and on.
Then something in me shifted. I didn’t think of Victor Frankl per se, but the dynamic of choosing my experience of what happened was natural and took over. Zach’s Dad said “Maybe you can bring it in the morning, or we could follow you home now?”
No. This was on me and I knew just what to do. In that moment I chose to embrace and enjoy the extra 90 minutes of driving, 60 of which would be spent with Zach.
I smiled and said “Hey Zach, want to ride back to Mom’s condo with me?” Knowing that I was only there for a short time (our usual routine after an evening drive) he smiled with delight at my question. He knew we went from almost saying goodbye, to another evening drive! I could almost hear him say “Hell yeah!” as we quickly put on his shoes and coat.
We drove, uneventfully to recover Zach’s green bag and its contents from my place, and then drove back to Zach’s, all the while singing (you guessed it, from my 1/22/21 post) “Happy Birthday!”
When we arrived back at Zach’s, his Dad, who had kindly called us to check in mid travel, said something about being sorry we had to do the extra trip. I responded “An extra hour with Zach? What could be better than that?!”
Thank you Victor Frankl that in small ways and massive ways, the idea of pausing before responding to intentionally choose my next action has changed my life.
This is a simple illustration of making the shift. But the negativity that could have ensued from being resentful, frustrated, angry or victimized (“what is wrong with me that I forgot his bag?!”) could have resulted in exponentially harmful events such as a car accident, late night anxiety over being angry, sleeplessness and resentment.
Next time your habit is to react negatively to a particular situation, take a breath. Process your choices on what happens next. Allow yourself to be aware that you have choices, and even if you are fully validated to be pissed, hurt, angry or frustrated, remind yourself that your response is a decision you get to make.
Then practice again and again.