Choose Your Reality Wisely

The basic idea: "There were always choices to make, wrote Viktor Frankl about his time in a Nazi concentration camp. "Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom."

This wisdom discovered under truly horrific conditions is a gift to all of us. Frankl teaches us that no matter the circumstances of your life, you get to decide the reality in which you dwell.

In other words, even if others control your physical world, you still have the ability to control your inner world: what you think and believe.

A bit more background: What you tell yourself matters. Nothing has more control over you than your thoughts.

Two people, faced with the exact same external facts, can think and act completely differently. One might perceive that the situation is hopeless, and give up. The other might relish the challenge and become energized and invigorated. Same exact facts, far different reality.

I deliberately opened this post with the most extreme and hopeless circumstances imaginable, using words from a man who not only survived those horrors but also lived to inspire millions of other people. Why? So you could not construct in your mind an excuse to be negative based on the "reality" of your situation.

Your reality is not a single, specific thing. It is something you choose. You always have the option to lean towards optimism, joy, love and hope.

Or you can chose some other way to think. It's not up to me; it's up to you.

My point is simple: only you control what you tell yourself.

Choose wisely.

(The opening passage is from From Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl.)

Bruce Kasanoff is a social media ghostwriter for entrepreneurs.