OUR RESPONSE, LOST BUT FOUND

Highlights of two Ted Talks from today:



OUR RESPONSE - Viktor Frankl spent five years in a Nazi concentration camp. While there he wrote that he could tell, should they ever be released, which of the people would be okay and which would not.

While in the camp he wrote: "Everything you have in life can be taken from you except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to a situation. This is what determines the quality of the life we've lived -- not whether we've been rich or poor, famous or unknown, healthy or suffering.

What determines our quality of life is how we relate to these realities, what kind of meaning we assign them, what kind of attitude we cling to about them.”

LOST BUT FOUND - Neil Selinger had joined a writers group where he found his writer's voice. Two years later, he was diagnosed with ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease.  It's a terrible disease. It's fatal. It wastes the body, but the mind remains intact. Mr. Selinger wrote the following to describe what was happening to him.

"As my muscles weakened, my writing became stronger. As I slowly lost my speech, I gained my voice. As I diminished, I grew.

As I lost so much, I finally started to find myself."

Hmmm.

Other comments I remember from these two talks:

"People over 50 see commonalities more than differences"
"When you are inside "oldness" fear subsides.  You realize you are still yourself"