02/27/2023
So true. So powerful. One moment can make all the difference between saving a life and losing one. It happens every day in many ways. Victor Frankl is also the author of one of the greatest stories of the strength of the human spirit in 'Man's Search for Meaning'. A small yet powerful story of the reality of human suffering and the constrasting strength of the human spirit to prevail. Xo
Viktor Frankl, one of the great psychiatrists of the twentieth century, survived the death camps of N**i Germany. His little book, Manβs Search for Meaning, is one of those life-changing books that everyone should read.
Frankl once told the story of a woman who called him in the middle of the night to calmly inform him she was about to commit su***de. Frankl kept her on the phone and talked her through her depression, giving her reason after reason to carry on living. Finally she promised she would not take her life, and she kept her word.
When they later met, Frankl asked which reason had persuaded her to live?
"None of them", she told him.
What then influenced her to go on living, he pressed?
Her answer was simple, it was Franklβs willingness to listen to her in the middle of the night. A world in which there was someone ready to listen to another's pain seemed to her a world in which it was worthwhile to live.
Often, it is not the brilliant argument that makes the difference. Sometimes the small act of listening is the greatest gift we can give.