What is meaningful? What is possible?
Reality confronts us many times with what is not possible. What we cannot do. We can not avoid facing pain, guilt, and death on some way and some form of suffering that we have to endure in life. And, this can happen on a daily basis.
Suffering draws us near to what is truly human in the limitations, that is to see an opportunity. An opportunity to look for what is still possible, what we still can do, what we could do, what we should do, what we ought to do. This is what is given, sometimes a large area, sometimes maybe a narrow area of what still is there, what still is valuable, still awaiting us, and only us to do, to experience, to create, to achieve...
The challenge is to "look away" from what we cannot do, "look beyond" to what we can still do, look inside, look outside, and look all around, for what we are still able and capable to do--for that is what we can still do--and that is what we then ought to intend to do, for that is what is meaningful to do.
To the "tragic triad" (Viktor Frankl), we can still superimpose the triangle of creative, experiential, and attitudinal values--the "value triad" (Viktor Frankl), and live not bemoaning what we cannot do, but rejoicing at what is still given, what we can still do, and what right now is calling, even stronger, clearer, and unmistakable, not despite of our suffering, but amidst it, in it, and through it.
...Listen carefully, listen attentively ("Attentive Meaning Sensitivity;" Edward Marshall) and you will then learn what is intended for you right now...and whenever you see it, hear it, touch it, or intuit it, you will know that you are wanted in Creation, wanted for that task that you alone are in the best position to fulfill.
When you are wanted, you are also cared for, loved, and protected.There is nothing and noone on this earth who can undo such bond, between you and your Creator who knows your circumstances, your pain, and your suffering, and has endowed you with faculties for being an instrument and witness of truth, beauty, and goodness in your life. For this, you will have power, you will have strength, and courage, if you ask, for now you have witnessed the power of your will--"the will to meaning" (V. Frankl), you have seen the freedom, the "freedom of will"(V. Frankl), and are called by meaning ("meaning under all circumstances;" V.Frankl)!
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There have been those, and remain those who call everything into question. They ask: What evidence you have for this? What proofs you can show us, or what results? Of course, life is not an experiment. But if it was, it is an "experimentum crucis" (V. Frankl), the way we live is the main test of our beliefs, and convictions.
With words from the Old Testament: "See, I have set before you life and death, so choose life."
With words from the Old Testament: "See, I have set before you life and death, so choose life."
There are many forms of "death" in our society, many forms of "ills." Responding to the sense of meaninglessness remains one of the main challenges to combat the many forms and levels of suffering in the form of "existential angst," (anxieties, worries, preoccupations) or "existential vacuum" (indifference, apathy, and boredom), or the triad of addictions, aggression and violence (against self) or others. As psycholgists and psychotherapists, we may be called upon to assess and to diagnose these conditions, and the diagnoses may vary, as the symptoms and manifestations may vary from person to person, depending on vulnerabilities, dispositions, character traits, etc. Treatment may also vary depending on factors involved. However, in most every situation, there is an element of freedom and therefore responsibility that remains, no matter the severity of the symptoms exhibited (except in conditions of mental incapacity, such as in a psychotic episode, for example), and thus meaning orientation can be potentially regained. Current guidelines orient us toward accurate diagnosis, and tratment options. Logotherapy (V. Frankl) remains an important component of psychotherapy that is oriented toward helping people respond to life in a meaningful way, thereby breaking the chain of maladaptive and destructive patterns that are originated in, or exacerbated by a lack of direction and sense of meaning in life.
