Viktor Frankl, a Jewish physician who spent the years of the Second World War in the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Dachau, related, "I remember my dilemma in a concentration camp when faced with a man and a woman who were close to suicide; both had told me that they expected nothing more from life. I asked both my fellow prisoners whether the question was really what we expected from life. Was it not, rather, what life was expecting from us? I suggested that life was awaiting something from them."
The person who feels despair and discouragement is asking the wrong question. He asks what the world is giving him. As soon as he changes his question to what is the good that he can do, he will always be able to find an answer.
(Gateway to Happiness, p.374)
See more Daily Lifts on the topic of
Despair
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About the Author
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin is a noted psychologist and prolific author of 24 books, including Guard Your Tongue, Gateway to Happiness, Gateway to Self Knowledge, Love Your Neighbor, Growth Through Torah, The Power of Words, Consulting the Wise, and the recent Life is Now. Rabbi Pliskin lives in Jerusalem, and is the director of Aish HaTorah's Counseling Center and a senior lecturer at Aish's Essentials program and the Executive Learning Center. He was ordained at the Telshe Yeshiva in Ohio and holds a degree in Counseling Psychology.
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(1) Joey, February 9, 2010 6:51 PM
This is really a brilliant insight; may we all think more about what we can do for others and God than what they can do for us. May God bless!