Some people enjoy great physical freedom. They can fly first class anywhere in the world they like. Other people have great mental freedom. They’re able to take stock and stay calm in very difficult situations. What can we learn from people who show great mental freedom? Everything. So we turn our gaze to one of history’s truly great masters of mental freedom.
Victor Frankl was a Jewish psychiatrist who, during the Second World War, was deported to a concentration camp. There he lived in constant uncertainty about which moment would be his last. In the camp, he worked clearing dead bodies and the ashes of the burned away from the great ovens. Ovens in which both his parents, his brother and his wife had perished.
One day he lay naked and alone in a small room, and there he discovered his way out of hell — out to freedom. He realised that, even under these inhuman conditions, he still had what he called “the last human freedom”. By training himself mentally and emotionally, he could build a small core of freedom to travel wherever he wanted in his thoughts. With practice, he could make that core grow in size.
In the end, it gave him more freedom than his guards had. True, they had greater physical freedom — but Frankl created for himself greater mental and emotional freedom. It gave him energy, a will to live and a drive to help others find the way out of their worst suffering.
Some people have great physical freedom while their mental freedom is zero. They have the money to travel wherever they like, but they don’t do it. Mentally, they’re stuck in beliefs that, for example, they’re short of time or can’t leave the house and garden for a longer stretch.
Others have great mental freedom even though their physical freedom is quite small. They travel, for example, on almost no money, or in spite of a serious disability.
People with little mental freedom will experience a significantly poorer quality of life than those whose mental freedom is great. Because when we can influence ourselves mentally, we can also influence ourselves emotionally — that is, have a say in how we feel.
Enjoy your work!
/Martin
