BookNotes-Prisoners of Our Thoughts: Viktor Frankl’s Principles at Work

[Book-Prisoner of our Thoughts]

Prisoners of Our Thoughts: Viktor Frankl’s Principles at Work
By Alex Pattakos, ISBN 1576752887

Table of Contents
Prisoners of Our Thoughts—Viktor Frankl’s Principles at Work
Foreword
Preface
Chapter 1 – Life Doesn’t Just Happen to Us
Chapter 2 – Viktor Frankl’s Lifework and Legacy
Chapter 3 – Labyrinths of Meaning
Chapter 4 – Exercise the Freedom to Choose Your Attitude
Chapter 5 – Realize Your Will to Meaning
Chapter 6 – Detect the Meaning of Life’s Moments
Chapter 7 – Don’t Work Against Yourself
Chapter 8 – Look at Yourself from a Distance
Chapter 9 – Shift Your Focus of Attention
Chapter 10 – Extend Beyond Yourself
Chapter 11 – Living and Working with Meaning
Notes

Core Principles
(1) we are free to choose our attitude toward everything that happens to us;
(2) we can realize our will to meaning by making a conscious commitment to meaningful values and goals;
(3) we can find meaning in all of life’s moments;
(4) we can learn to see how we work against ourselves;
(5) we can look at ourselves from a distance and gain insight and perspective as well as laugh at ourselves; (
(6) we can shift our focus of attention when coping with difficult situations; and
(7) we can reach out beyond ourselves and make a difference in the world.

Viewing life as inherently meaningful and literally unlimited in potential
1. Requires a shift in consciousness.
2. Requires responsible action on our part for the potential for meaning that exists in each moment of life can only be searched for and detected by each of us individually

When we search out and discover the authentic meaning of our existence and our experiences,
1. We discover that life doesn’t happen to us.
2. We happen to life; and we make it meaningful

Self-discovery, our “will to meaning,” that is, our inherent capacity to continually search for meaning under all circumstances

“You do not have to suffer to learn. But, if you don’t learn from suffering, over which you have no control, then your life becomes truly meaningless. . . . The way in which a man accepts his fate—those things beyond his control—can add a deeper meaning to his life. He controls how he responds.”

“They may have been few in number,” he wrote, “but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”^[

Ten Positive Things Exercise:
“List ten positive things that would happen if you lost your job today.”
“List ten positive things that would happen if your department was eliminated today.”
“List ten positive things that would happen from a breakdown in a production line.”
“List ten positive things that would happen if the work week was changed from 5-days/8-hours per day to 4-days/10-hours per day.”
“List ten positive things that would happen from a 20% budget cut.”

As a human phenomenon, however, freedom is all too human. Human freedom is finite freedom. Man is not free from conditions. But he is free to take a stand in regard to them. The conditions do not completely condition him. Within limits it is up to him whether or not he succumbs and surrenders to the conditions. He may as well rise above them and by so doing open up and enter the human dimension . . . Ultimately, man is not subject to the conditions that confront him; rather, these conditions are subject to his decision. Wittingly or unwittingly, he decides whether he will face up or give in, whether or not he will let himself be determined by the conditions.

Types of Will
1. Will to meaning-basic striving of man to find and fulfill meaning and purpose in life
2. Will to pleasure-drive to seek pleasure
3. Will to power-drive to seek power
4.  Will to pride – drive to seek fame

How many of us have looked forward to a beautifully planned holiday and then felt disappointed after it was over? How often does the promise of pleasure captivate us, only to leave us unsatisfied after the event happens, no matter how perfect it seemed at the time? This is true with everything from drugs and sex to pay raises and vacations. It’s the promise of pleasure that we are lured by; pleasure itself is fleeting. We come down with a cold on the plane to paradise. We get a sad phone call from a family member that dashes plans for a romantic evening. Our teenage daughter puts a dent in the new car and it’s no longer perfect. We feel excited about what we purchased during a shopping spree, only to find the thrill gone after only a week. Moments of true pleasure come to us when we aren’t looking for them. They are gifts uncalled for, moments that transcend our planning, moments that transcend even our perception of pleasure.

The search for power in our lives is parallel to our search for pleasure. It is “out there.” Power over our employees, our bosses, our customers, our shareholders, our kids, the waitress in a restaurant, or a clerk in a retail store is illusory at best and terribly destructive at worst. We think we might have power but we never know for sure. Even if we do, in the power game there’s always an opponent, the ground is always shifting. Much like Sisyphus, the Greek hero who was ordered by the gods to push a big rock uphill only to see it slip out of his hands in the last moment, our search for power becomes an endless—and joyless—undertaking.

The will to meaning comes from within. Only we ourselves can find it, control it, and fulfill it. It is meaning that sustains us throughout our lives, no matter how little or how much power and pleasure come our way. Most important of all, meaning sustains us through any pain and suffering that we must endure.

Every human being is a Leonardo da Vinci. The only problem is that he doesn’t know it. His parents didn’t know it, and they didn’t treat him like a Leonardo. Therefore he didn’t become like a Leonardo.

“Confidence is the start of it, Joy is a part of it, Love is the heart of it.”

Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!

We don’t create meaning; we find it. And we can’t find it if we don’t look for it. Meaning comes to us in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it looms big in our lives; sometimes it slips in almost unobserved. Sometimes we miss a meaningful moment entirely until days, months, or even years go by and then suddenly something that once seemed insignificant becomes a pivotal, life-changing moment. Sometimes, too, it is the collective meaning of many moments that finally catches our mind’s eye; as if we weave together a living quilt from patches of moments that, by themselves, would have passed us by unnoticed. And, although we are not always aware of it, meaning, Frankl would say, is in every present moment. It goes without saying—wherever we go. All we have to do, in daily life and at work, is to wake up to meaning and take notice

The true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as if it were a closed system.