“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” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
In this rare clip from 1972, legendary psychiatrist and Holocaust-survivor Viktor Frankl delivers a powerful message about the human search for meaning — and the most important gift we can give others.
This video was created for a graduate-level Theories of Counseling Psychology course at The University of Texas at Austin. Its intent is to provide some insight into Viktor Frankl’s life and his work in Logotherapy.
Article Excerpt: “Logotherapy is composed of three basic principles. The first basic principle is that life has meaning in all circumstances, even despondent ones. The second principle is that the main motivational force is the desire to find meaning in life. Lastly, the third basic principle states that humanity has the freedom of attitudinal choice, even in situations of unchangeable affliction (Frankl, 1959). Thus, Frankl purports that people can discover meaning through creative, experiential, and attitudinal values (Hatt, 1965). Creative values consist of achievement of tasks such as painting a picture or tending a flowerbed (Boeree, 2006). Experiential values consist of encountering another human, such as a loved one, or by experiencing the world through a state of receptivity such as appreciating natural beauty (Hatt, 1965). Attitudinal values speak of the potential to make meaningful choices in situations of suffering and adversity (Gelman & Gallo, 2009). Frankl contends that everything can be taken away from a person but the freedom to choose one’s attitude (Frankl, 1959). He stressed that people should not suffer unnecessarily in order find meaning but that meaning was possible when suffering is inevitable. For example, a person subjected to an incurable disease or placed in a concentration camp can still discover meaning even though his or her situation seems dire (Hatt, 1965). Moreover, tragic optimismmeans that people are capable of optimism in spite of the tragic triad. Frankl believes that all humans will be subjected to the tragic triad, which consists of guilt, death, and unavoidable suffering (Ponsaran, 2007).”
INSPIRATION | Follow your heart
“Your time is limited so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by DOGMA, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, and most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition – they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
At times some of us have a tendency to associate the term “self-love” with narcissism; self-centeredness, or being egotistical, which leaves us with a bit of a conundrum. We don’t want to be thought of as a narcissist, and we have grown up being told not to be self-centered. This, then, raises the question, how can I love myself without being narcissistic?
In his interview, Psycho-Spiritual Scientist & Empowerment Specialist Ashraf Moorad uses the term “self-appreciation” as a window through which to view oneself.
Self-Love & Self Appreciation : The Key to The Spiritual Dimension
Frank Giudici workshop, Love Yourself Into Wholenessis posted on the TruthUnity website developed by Mark Hicks.
Dwelling in guilt is like living your life with an anchor tied to your ankles dragging you down.
Learning to accept the things that we perceive as wrong can be a difficult task for many of us. Often we have been brought up to accept that it is normal to feel guilty about our actions and that by doing so we will make everything seem alright within ourselves. Even though we might feel that we have a reason to make up for the choices we have made, it is much more important for us to learn how to deal with them in a healthy and positive way, such as through forgiveness and understanding.
When we can look back at our past and really assess what has happened, we begin to realize that there are many dimensions to our actions. While feeling guilty might assuage our feelings at first, it is really only a short-term solution. It is all too ironic that being hard on ourselves is the easy way out. If we truly are able to gaze upon our lives through the lens of compassion, however, we will be able to see that there is much more to what we do and have done than we realize. Perhaps we were simply trying to protect ourselves or others and did the best we could at the time, or maybe we thought we had no other recourse and chose a solution in the heat of the moment. Once we can understand that dwelling in our negative feelings will only make us feel worse, we will come to recognize that it is really only through forgiving ourselves that we can transform our feelings and truly heal any resentment we have about our past.
Giving ourselves permission to feel at peace with our past actions is one of the most positive steps we can take toward living a life free from regrets, disappointments, and guilt. The more we are able to remind ourselves that the true path to a peaceful mind and heart is through acceptance of every part of our lives and actions, the more harmony and inner joy we will experience in all aspects of our lives.
This article was originally published on the DailOM website. To register for your free DailyOM – Click here.
“Fear, not the kind where you fear for your life, but the kind of fear that makes you afraid you are going to say something stupid. The kind of fear that makes you self conscious and makes your heart beat a little too fast. That kind of fear is abundant in schools and businesses, and it is toxic. It robs people, from students to business people, of one of the most critical skills they need to be successful: creativity…” – Delise Crimmins – Chief Learning Officer at Opt In Experts
Servant leadership is a philosophy and set of practices that enriches the lives of individuals, builds better organizations and ultimately creates a more just and caring world.
While servant leadership is a timeless concept, the phrase “servant leadership” was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader, an essay that he first published in 1970. In that essay, Greenleaf said:
“The servant-leader is servant first… It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessions…The leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature.”
“The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?“
Sarcasm: The use of irony to mock or convey contempt… Anyone who has suffered from the sarcastic remarks of others will not be too surprised to learn that sarcasm, “a cutting remark,” comes from a Greek verb, sarkazein, that literally means “to tear flesh like a dog.” Very early, though, this Greek verb came to mean “to bite one’s lip in rage,” and “to gnash one’s teeth,” and finally “to sneer.”
The Greek noun sarkasmos, from which the English sarcasm comes, meant “a sneering or hurtful remark.” But even today sarcasm is often described as sharp, cutting, or wounding, recalling in a faint way the original meaning of the Greek verb.
Sarcasm: The use of irony to mock or convey contempt… Anyone who has suffered from the sarcastic remarks of others will not be too surprised to learn that sarcasm, “a cutting remark,” comes from a Greek verb, sarkazein, that literally means “to tear flesh like a dog.” Very early, though, this Greek verb came to mean “to bite one’s lip in rage,” and “to gnash one’s teeth,” and finally “to sneer.”
The Greek noun sarkasmos, from which the English sarcasm comes, meant “a sneering or hurtful remark.” But even today sarcasm is often described as sharp, cutting, or wounding, recalling in a faint way the original meaning of the Greek verb.
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“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” ― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Daily Om – Releasing Guilt: Permission to Forgive Ourselves
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