ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

Beauty from the inside, that is what truly matters. How do we achieve that? Is it possible to adjust our attitudes? Can we actually achieve some simple strategies to help us be the best we can be, especially under adverse conditions?

Lots of questions here. I am reading a wonderful book, for the second time, Man's Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist, holocaust survivor, lecturer, existentialist, husband and father~

at Amazon

Through the most difficult of times, as witnessed, experienced, and proven by Dr. Frankl, attitude will determine how you experience every facet of life, and how you can and will survive the difficulties (and in Viktor's case, the horrors) that life can present. 

Viktor is a beautiful man, with a beautiful mind. His empirical evidence shows that those who survive are those who maintain their personal independence by controlling their attitude and response to those events that present themselves. Thus, maintaining and managing our emotions gives us freedom. And, to the extent we experience suffering, regard that suffering as an opportunity for growth. As German philosopher Neitzche professes, 'that which does not kill you will make you stronger.'

This is a beauty blog, so what does philosophy have to do with beauty? Everything. When you find a philosophy, you find a way a life.  Beauty is growth, it is peace, it is acceptance, it is strength.

In Viktor's story, he discusses beauty, under the most adverse of conditions. Through his story he reinforces the truth that we can discover beauty and strength in many tiny opportunities over the course of each day, you have to look for these moments of respite and peace and you will be able to identify them. They are there.

In thinking about his wife at the dawn of an early morning pink sky, he has lucid images of her beauty and presence, and comes to realize~

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers.  The truth- that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in  enduring his sufferings in the right way-an honorable way- in such a position a man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.  For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."

Can anything be more beautiful than these thoughts, these truths? Viktor in his three years under Nazi confinement transcends the awful to show us the good of which man is capable.

The world almost lost him to typhus even while he doctored many typhus patients, and we are truly blessed to have his story and wisdom to make our own. It is no wonder over 10 million copies of his book have been sold in 24 different langages, and Dr. Fankl's story ranks in the top 10 of the most influential books in America (Source:1991 survey Library of Congress with Book of the Month Club).

Love is beauty, be fit and strong and contemplate these truths ☀