One of the most humbling books I have ever read is “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor Frankl, who wrote about the despair of his time in Nazi concentration camp, where his parents and wife were killed. The book talks about how he was able to survive by clinging to the only freedom he had left, the freedom to choose his own attitude. Two Viktor Frankl quotes that most resonated with me:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

“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.”

When something happens, don’t react – use that space, that freedom to choose, to respond instead. A response is much more considered than a reaction.