The psychiatrist Viktor Frankl survived concentration camp during World War II only to be freed from internment to find his wife, father, mother and brother had been killed while he was in prison.

Yet Frankl wrote the most inspiring book I have ever read Man’s Search For Meaning — a book he cobbled together while he was held captive under the worst situations often memorizing key thoughts and crudely writing down what he could on whatever he had available.

Man’s Search For Meaning in the end was about hope.  How do you come away from horrific pain and loss such as Dr. Frankl endured to write a book about hope?

The answer is summed up in Frankl’s own words:  “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”.

I first read this book on a northern New Jersey beach that overlooked the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and Southern Manhattan including what would later become the ill-fated World Trade Center.

These thoughts bolster me when adversity strikes close to home.

That no matter how out of control my situation may seem, I don’t ever have to give up my ability to choose my out.

Recommend these day starters to friends and family here.