My friend Erin recently posted about receiving her long-earned, much deserved tenure as a professor. In the post, she confessed her hesitancy to broadcast it for fear it was somehow not important, relevant or ran counter to the prevailing mood during this time of COVD-19 and stay-at-home orders. My reply? We absolutely should be sharing these moments of joy at a time like this.
I firmly believe that even during the darkest moments of life, there is purpose and meaning, joy and hope. Don’t label me an optimist; sometimes I am quite the opposite. Instead, it is the realist in me that sees that practically there can always be something gained during times of profound challenge, loss, and suffering.
If you haven’t yet caught on, this blog focuses on my personal pursuit of purpose and meaning in my own life and the lives of others. Pay attention and you will find that I am a big fan of neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning.
One of Frankl’s keys to finding purpose and meaning is the act of suffering. Frankl contends, “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering…Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.” Meaning may come from the suffering itself, the way sufferer or others respond to it, or in the attitude we choose in dealing with the suffering and its aftermath. It is important to know that Frankl’s first wife, father, mother, and brother were killed in Nazi concentration camps. Frankl himself was one of only a handful who survived Auschwitz.
In just the past seven days, my friend’s career accomplishment, discovering that a friend with whom I was close in college just moved nearby, the birth of a child by a colleague, and helping my child learn to read his first sentences have all brought me a sense of meaning. COVID-19 or not, that is a pretty wonderful week. I celebrate these bits of joy within the darkness.
What have been your moments of joy this past week?