Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search For Meaning writes about both the physical and mental challenges of surviving in a World War II concentration camp. 

It is a book about hope.

When Frankl told a friend that he would join him attempting to escape, he recalls an intense unpleasant feeling that came over him.

But something loomed larger for Frankl, a doctor and psychiatrist who was assigned to caring for the health of sick and dying at Auschwitz.

He decided not to attempt an escape.  He listened to his inner voice and feelings and the results were transformative.  To hear Frankl tell it:

“As soon as I told him with finality that I made up my mind to stay with my patients, the unhappy feeling left me.  I did not know what the following days would bring, but I had gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before.”

The message is clear.

Making the decision to take fate into your own hands is more difficult than knowing the right thing to do.

Courage to decide.

The immediate serenity of inward peace once the decision is made.

This serves a template for the rest of us in our workaday world where too frequently we allow ourselves to be paralyzed by the fear of deciding even when we know what to do.

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