I am not sure if this post will make any sense, but I have a few different thoughts running through my head that I wanted to try and share with you....so bare with me on this one.
Last year one of my favorite graduate school professors (Sallie Foley for all of my U of M people out there) recommended to our Grief and Mourning class that we read Viktor Frankl's book, Man's Search for Meaning. Frankl was both a Holocaust survivor and a well respected psychiatrist. In his book he argues that "life is potentially meaningful under any conditions, even those that are most miserable" and that "people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning." Frankl credits his surviving the Holocaust to the fact that he was in the middle of writing a book when placed in a concentration camp. His strong desire to survive in order to finish and publish it kept him going in even when he was the sickest. Even in the bleakest of human situations, he was able to find meaning and it was this meaning that made life bearable.
While I am in no way comparing my life here to living through the Holocaust, it's quite the opposite really-- our life here is pretty amazing....this morning I ate breakfast with Daniel while watching the monkeys play, I spent the day training community leaders from four villages in public health programing, and I sit here on my porch drinking a beer, listening to the birds and looking at beautiful sunset over the mountains. Yet, I feel like I am beginning to understand what Frankl writes about in his book. Yesterday I drove to a meeting in and on the way saw a patient who was beginning his journey home, nothing less then a four hour walk mind you, even though he is missing a foot and on crutches. He happened to be going to the same village I was and so I was able to give him a lift. It actually made my day to be able to give him a ride as I knew the walk would have been long, hot and brutal.
In the end, the meeting I was going to didn't happen as not enough people showed up. Even though I had spent all morning getting there and hiked half an hour in and out of to the meeting place, I still felt the day was a success because of giving the man a ride. That made me think about Frankl's book and his argument about our ability to be happy in life, no matter what our circumstances. It really is all in the way you look at things. One might think that there is no way a CTA bus driver could be happy with his job or find meaning in driving in traffic all day, stopping every block to let passengers on and off, having to give directions to tourists all day long on how to get to Michigan Ave. or the zoo, but now I see how it is all in their point of view. Without the driver people wouldn't be able to get to work, to a necessary doctor's appointment, to see the friend they are visiting in town... yup, his job can in fact provide endless amounts of meaning. And when we see the meaning in life, this makes us content. It doesn't matter what kind of car we might drive or the vacations we can afford to go on, its these little things.
Everyday here I am given these opportunities and I feel so blessed that this is the case. Whether it's playing with a patient in the malnutrition room and getting them to smile or holding someone's hand while Daniel stitches up their arm, these moments provide me with what Frankl describes in his book as opportunities to find meaning in life. Something I struggle with in my own life is being appreciate of what I have and living in the moment. I hope that throughout this year I am able to curb my negativity and find the meaning in each day, to which Frankl suggests allows us to be happy and fulfilled. Hmmm......here's to trying.
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