WEEK 12.3 (MARCH 22-MARCH 28) – IMPORTANCE OF KEEPING HOPE ALIVE
IMPORTANCE OF LIFE MEANING
Three Psychiatrists
Vienna, Europe, the period leading up to WW2. Three Jewish psychiatrists, two learned masters in the field, one the young apprentice.
The first master is a man named Sigmund Freud. He has spent years studying people, striving to understand what makes us tick. He’s reached the conclusion that the most basic drive in human beings is the drive for pleasure. It’s our need for pleasure that explains why we do what we do, how we live.
The second master is Alfred Adler. He too has spent years studying human behavior. His studies have led him to disagree with Sigmund Freud. Adler is convinced the bottom line explanation for human behaviour is power. All of us grow up feeling inferior and powerless. Life is a drive to gain control, to feel we are important.
The third man is a young up-and-coming psychiatrist by the name of Victor Frankl. He hopes to follow in the footsteps of his mentors. But before his career gains any momentum WW2 starts. The Nazis invade and its dangerous for Jews. Freud and Adler are world renowned scholars and so manage to escape before Hitler invades. Frankl is not so lucky. He is arrested and thrown into a Nazi concentration camp for four long years.
After the war is over Frankl is released from the concentration camp and resumes his career. He reflects upon his time as a prisoner. He noticed something quite strange – the people who survived were not always the ones you’d expect. Many who were physically strong wasted away and died while others who were much more weak physically grew strong and survived. Why? What was it that enabled them to hang on through a living hell?
Frankl reflected on the theories of his mentors. Freud’s pleasure principle couldn’t explain it. For four desperate and terrible years the men in that camp knew only pain, suffering and degradation. Pleasure was not a word in their vocabulary. It wasn’t pleasure that kept them going.
What then of Adler’s theory about power being the basic human need? That didn’t fare well either. Frankl and his fellow Jews were completely powerless during their time in the concentration camps. Each day they stared down the barrel of a loaded gun, were treated like animals, felt jackboots on their faces. They had no power and no prospect of power.
Victor Frankl came up with his own theory. The difference between those who survived and those who perished was hope. Those who survived never gave up their belief that their lives had meaning, that despite everything going on around them it would one day end and they would live meaningful, purposeful lives. What is the basic human drive? The one thing that gives life value? The ability to live with a sense of meaning. Not pleasure. Not power. Meaning.
“Hope is the last emotion to die in a human”
Perseverance
“The well-worn, easy path is the one usually leading to mediocrity. Take the more difficult, less traveled path or create your own. The greater the challenge, the greater the joy experienced in overcoming it.” – David Scott
“Some fall into the flames and are consumed, other’s fly out victoriously, with their wings on fire, but forever transformed, purified and forged stronger by the experience.” – David Scott
“Some walks in life, you just have to take alone,” – David Scott
“It was when she walked alone, that she discovered her strength. It is hard to walk alone, but sometimes that is the walk that makes us the strongest.”
“Do not judge her, you have no idea the storms she has walked through to get to where she stands today.” – David Scott
“Some people are lost in the fires of life, others are forged by them.”
“They laugh at me because I am different, I laugh at them because they are all the same.” – Kurt Cobain
“You need a level of darkness, to see the stars.”
“She conquered her demons and wore her scars like wings. Love her but leave her wild.” – Atticus Poetry, Love Her Wild
“What good are wings without the courage to fly? Sure she was afraid of heights but she was much more afraid of never flying.” – Atticus Poetry, Love Her Wild
“From the moment I saw her I knew this one was worth the broken heart.” – Atticus Poetry, Love Her Wild
“There’s too much risk in loving, the young boy said, ‘no,’ said the old man, there’s too much risk in not.” – Atticus Poetry, Love Her Wild
“Strength does not come from doing what you can do, it comes from overcoming what you first thought was impossible.”
What is your passion… “If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” – Steve Jobs
“Success isn’t the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.”
“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.”-Thomas J. Watson (IBM CEO)
“Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson
Be brave enough to stand for what you believe in, even if it means you stand alone
“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.” – Anthony Robbins
“A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him.”
“Don’t let yesterday take up too much of today.” – Will Rogers
Just because the war is lost, it does not mean that you must be conqoured.
The one who falls and gets up is so much stronger than the one who never fell.
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” –Thomas Edison
“Everything in life that is “worth achieving,” requires risk and should scare you just a little bit.” – David Scott
“Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in.” – Bill Bradley
“Success is not the absence of failure; it’s the persistence through failure.” – Aisha Tyler
“Success is sequential, not simultaneous. It is the last stoke of the pick ax that finally cracks the rock.” David Scott
“Adversity causes some to break, others to break records.” William A. Ward
“We have not crossed that subtle line from childhood to adulthood until we stop saying “It got lost” and instead say “I lost it.” – Sydney Harris
“The confident person admits to their mistakes, honoring them like hard fought battle scars; the cowardly must instead blame others, learning nothing but shame from their experience.” – David Scott
“You must not allow your long term goals and dreams to be derailed off track by short term defeats. A stumble can often prevent a fall.” – David Scott`
“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.” – Margaret Thatcher
“Every path has a puddle.”
“Buried within every problem are the seeds of its own solution. Often it is not that the solution that cannot be seen, but that the problem is never first fully understood.” – David Scott
“The block of granite, that was an obstacle for the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong.” Thomas Carlyle
“Only he who does nothing, makes no mistakes.” – French Proverb
“Everything is going to be difficult. In order to build muscle you have to first feel the burn.” David Scott
General Yoga
“Inhale, and God approaches you. Hold the inhalation, and God remains with you. Exhale, and you approach God. Hold the exhalation, and surrender to God.” – Krishnamacharya
“Why do we need money beyond a point? If we are free of ill health, enmity, and debt, is that not enough? Too much money only leads to less peace.” – Krishnamacharya
“Whenever you are in doubt, it is best to pause. Few things are so pressing that they cannot wait for a moment of breath.” – T.K.V. Desikachar, The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice
“When the breath control is correct, mind control is possible.” – Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois
“In Order to be effective, truth must penetrate like an arrow-and that is likely to hurt.” – Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois
“Anyone can practice. Young man can practice. Old man can practice. Very old man can practice. Man who is sick, he can practice. Man who doesn’t have strength can practice. Except lazy people; lazy people can’t practice Ashtanga yoga.” – Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois
“Yoga teaches us to cure what need not be endured and endure what cannot be cured.”- B.K.S. Iyengar
“Yoga is like music. The rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, and the harmony of the soul create the symphony of life.” – B.K.S. Iyengar
“It is through the alignment of the body that I discovered the alignment of my mind, self, and intelligence.” – B.K.S. Iyengar
“Healthy plants and trees yield abundant flowers and fruits. Similarly, from a healthy person, smiles and happiness shine forth like the rays of the sun.” – B.K.S. Iyengar
There is only one reality, but there are many ways that reality can be interpreted.” – B.K.S. Iyengar
“The Light that YOGA sheds on Life is something special. It is transformative. It does not change the way we see things; it transforms the person who sees.” – B.K.S. Iyengar
“The body is your temple. Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside in.” – B.K.S Iyengar
“The union of nature and soul removes the veil of ignorance that covers our intelligence.” – B.K.S. Iyengar
“Any action done with beauty and purity, and in complete harmony of body, mind and soul, is Art.” – B.K.S. Iyengar
“The hardness of a diamond is part of its usefulness, but its true value is in the light that shines through it.” – B.K.S. Iyengar
“Yoga is for internal cleansing, not external exercising. Yoga means true self-knowledge.” – Sri Krishna Pattabhi Jois