Daring to Dream

Thursday, April 17, 2014


“Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it” 

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” 

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.” 

“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.”

All of the above quotes derive from the wisdom of Viktor Frankl.  I will write more about him shortly.

In the last few days I have been starting to wonder if a whole new phase of my healing journey is about to begin.  I am starting to believe the worst years of my life may very well be behind me.  I am daring to do something I have felt unable to do for a long time.  I am starting to dare to dream once again.

There is a saying that hindsight is 20/20.  In other words, clarity regarding the circumstances of our lives, the challenges we may face and the factors that influence the people we ultimately become is more likely when we look back on the earlier moments in our own life histories at a later time.  Sometimes we don’t truly know that a vital new beginning is occurring until weeks, months or perhaps even years after it actually occurs.  The seeds of change we plant today may not sprout into the benefits of a better life until much time has passed but that doesn’t mean we should underestimate the power of our intentions and efforts to change.

I sense something is finally beginning to come to fruition in response to all the changes and all the work I have done in the last nine months to improve my life.  I am laying a new foundation for my future life.  And I am beginning to more strongly believe my better future is actually going to manifest into reality…eventually.  As has been necessary for the last ten months it is vital that I continue to cultivate the ability to be patient.  All good things supposedly come to those who wait...even Spring in Minnesota. (There is snow on the ground again today - it's April 17th)

Nurturing hope can be one scary proposition.  Hoping means you are daring to dream of a better reality than the one you are currently living.  Hoping takes courage, strength and a willingness to keep trying no matter how many times your efforts seem to fail to bear the fruit you were hoping for.  I have heard people say that the only thing you can truly change in the world is yourself.  This is the only space in the world where you can potentially have 100% mastery over what unfolds.  Other teachers I have encountered on my life journey have shared that you might not have control over circumstances that you find displeasing, stressful, horrific and unjust but you always have the power to choose how you will respond to those circumstances.

Victor Frankl possessed the wisdom as encapsulated in the end of my last paragraph.  Perhaps it was borne specifically of his own personal life journey.  Perhaps this wisdom was in him at an early age and his life simply reinforced his already existing belief.  Frankl was one of those people who survived the concentration camps of Nazi occupied Europe.  He later went on to write Man’s Search For Meaning.  His writings are a testament to the resilience of the human spirit in the face of tragic and extreme circumstances.  And what could be more extremely tragic than the genocide of a whole group of people?  I suppose the only possibilities that are more horrific would be the extinction of the human race or the complete annihilation of all life on Earth.  But perhaps we are living in tragic times anyhow.  The rate of non-human species extinction is currently unprecedented.

Frankl is yet another example of a human being who, like Alice Herz-Sommers, transcended the worst of circumstances beyond his control.  He survived the death camps of Europe and went on to live all the way to the age of ninety-two.  The wisdom he offered to humanity is an inspiration to me.

When I was a student of Naropa University I took a class entitled “Creativity and Tragedy”.  Part of the required reading for the course was The Diary of Anne Frank.  Frank became famous for her writings during the time of World War II.  She didn’t live a long life (she essentially had no adulthood) but her spirit lives on in the gift of her writing.  

In an upcoming posting I plan to post a written piece I wrote as part of my coursework for the Creativity and Tragedy class.

Five Things I Am Grateful For

Mediators

Lunch

Melting snow

Vitamin D

My job