Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude (2024)

I saw a little bit of series CRASH COURSE on Amazon Prime. I am not sure if students and their families are actually so desperate for them to get into IIT.

This reminded me of one of my fathers friend, he lived in the next block. His lifelong dream was to build a house, which took him lifetime of earnings and many years. Due to pressure of children, he had to sell the house and move somewhere else. Once me and my father were near our house, and he met us - my father asked him, how come you are here, he said I have come to meet someone. He looked lost and sad. I asked my father, whats the problem. He told me that the house he built, he didnt want to sell it - he comes back here to see the house from a distance. He was very emotional about the house, several other people have noted this, and he confessed to a common friend that he misses the house and comes here to see it. He died a couple of years later, a friend of my father was at my house who gave us the news - he said, after moving away from that house, his health just kept going downwards - and now he is gone. This was around 20 years ago, and I have thought about him many times. I keep thinking if you want something, or love that one thing, or put all your dreams in one basket - it can impact you very badly.

When I read the book "Mans search for meaning" by Viktor E Frankl , who was a holocaust survivor, I thought about my fathers friend, as Mr. Frankl says:

“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 circ*mstance.”

I think my fathers friend put so much investment in that one thing, that he lost his choice to respond. And it will happen if you want something really bad:

1. Even if you get it you suffer as you want it to grow or sustain

2. If you don't get it you suffer

Mr. Frankl further explains, with probably the most beautiful of his writings:

“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”

There are deep meanings in these words, but for the current context of this post - it means if you put too much energy into that one target, one thing - it will take away your freedom to respond to its success or failure. Since you have pre-decided, what will make you unhappy and happy.

“Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.” - Viktor E Frankl

I think we lose this freedom when we "pursue", rather we should "ensue". As when we "pursue", put more and more energy into it, by making it our ultimate dream, the "choice" disappears.

An easier way to understand this, how Stephen Covey puts it: Take an action based on your value system, rather than its outcome. If the focus is outcome, then "freedom to choose our attitude towards a positive or negative result" is no longer there.

Lets think about it.