You Don’t Need To Struggle
You just need to respond.
I want to share a quote with you that changed my life.
(I’m not exaggerating. I came across this quote during my lowest of lows, and I don’t think I could’ve picked myself back up without it.)
The quote is attributed to Viktor Frankyl.
Viktor Frankyl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and prolific writer. His most notable work, Man’s Search for Meaning, recounts his experience as a Holocaust survivor.
The quote goes like this:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
There’s so much good stuff to break down here.
Let’s start with the first sentence: “Between stimulus and response there is a space.”
In life, there are moments that throw us off our game. These moments may trip us up a bit, or they may completely knock us down.
This is what Frankyl refers to as the stimulus. (I’m not as eloquent as him, so I’m going to call this shit hitting the fan.)
When shit hits the fan, we have to act. We must respond.
Which brings me to my first point: in stressful situations, we need to act with intention.
Did you notice Frankyl’s word choice? He uses the word response, not reaction.
The word reaction implies that an action is performed automatically, without thinking. Response, on the other hand, implies that an action is intentional.
It may seem like a subtle difference, but this makes a big difference when we’re in a stressful situation.
It’s natural to have an emotional reaction to stress. (I talk about emotional awareness in another post.)
But ultimately, we need to respond to that stress in a thoughtful manner.
And that’s where the space comes in.
Let’s look at the second sentence: “In that space is our power to choose our response.”
In stressful situations, we have the opportunity - the space - to decide how we want to respond.
We have agency, as long as we take advantage of it.
Here’s my second point: even when it feels like everything around us is falling apart, we still have control.
When we think about having control, we often think about trying to control what’s around us.
In other words, we set ourselves up for failure.
We can’t control emails from flooding our inbox. We can’t control our parents from aging. We can’t control politicians from attacking one another.
The only thing we can control is ourselves. We control how we respond to the world around us.
Let’s finish with the third sentence: “In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Every time we choose how we want to respond, we are building up strength.
We become stronger at making decisions and taking actions that align with who we want to be. And the more we practice this, the easier it becomes.
This is our growth.
That brings me to my third and final point: it’s not easy, but it gets easier.
I can’t begin to tell you how liberating it was to realize all this.
To realize that we’re not subject to the constant stressors that accost us, to realize that we don’t need to struggle, was life-changing.
It’s why this quote had such an impact on me. It was my freedom - and it can be yours, too.
As you go through your week, keep Frankyl’s words in your mind and in your heart. What stressors have you been dealing with lately? How do you want to respond to them? How will you feel when you choose to respond to them in this way?
It’s time for you to secure your own space.
