Sunday, July 17, 2011

Perspective

I was down and out after a heated argument with family. I know I was hurt and it felt like end of everything. Meanwhile, I too refuge in the internet and I fould this article which gave me a lot of encouragement.

"THE LATE Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist and survivor of Hitler’s concentration camps, often helped his patients gain perspective, and when he successfully did this, it changed their lives. When you know how to gain perspective, your life will be changed, and you’ll be better able to help others.

For example, because Frankl knew how to gain perspective, he was able to help an elderly and severely depressed man who came to him for therapy. The man’s wife had died and she had meant more to him than anything in the world.

How could Frankl help this man gain some perspective on such a tragic event? “What would have happened,” Frankl asked the man, “if you had died first, and your wife would have survived you?”

The man answered: “Oh, for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” The man was beginning to gain a new perspective, wasn’t he?

“You see,” said Frankl, “such a suffering has been spared her, and it is you who have spared her this suffering; but now, you have to pay for it by surviving and mourning her.”

The man didn’t say anything. He shook Dr. Frankl’s hand and calmly left. He’d gained an entirely different perspective on his situation in an instant.

Frankl wrote, “Suffering ceases to be suffering in some way at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”

from http://www.youmeworks.com/how-to-gain-perspective.html

I felt good after reading and contemplating.