“Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.” ~Gandhi
It was 1999 and my life stunk. I had failed miserably as a missionary for my church, I’d been sent to a mental hospital and diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and I was in the process of losing the woman I thought I was going to marry.
I was in bad shape, and didn’t have a clue as to how I could right the ship, so to speak.
Now, 13 years later, I have a great job that provides for me and my family. I have a beautiful wife, two lovely children (with another on the way!), and plenty of free time to pursue the hobbies I enjoy. I have a roof over my head, food to eat, and thanks to a few tiny little pills I take every day, I also enjoy good physical and mental health.
I don’t want to leave you with the impression that everything changed completely overnight. It didn’t.
To deal with the loss of my girlfriend I did some therapy; I put myself back on the market and did a lot of dating; I consciously chose to let go of what I thought should happen and accept what had happened. Slowly, I healed until one day I realized that I was open to loving fully again.
Dealing with my mental illness is a challenge that continues to this day. I’ve put in place the foundation for good mental health by accepting the fact that I will need to be medicated for the rest of my life.
After making that choice, there has still been an endless parade of medications as we try to find the right cocktail for me. And even with the medications, I still have good times and bad. The medication, I’ve found, is a tool and not a panacea.
Making these outward choices has really helped, but there is one thing that really changed everything for me: I changed my attitude.
What caused that change? I read a book called Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl.
Frankl was a neurologist and psychiatrist who was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War II. He was forced to work as a slave laborer and watch as many of his peers died slow, miserable deaths.
He was separated from his own wife, mother, and father, and lost them all before the war ended. But what did Frankl learn from his time in the concentration camp? Here’s what he had to say:
“Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances…”
When I read those words, something clicked inside of me. I intuitively knew that they were true, and I knew that I needed to learn how to give myself an attitude adjustment if I wanted to have any measure of peace in this world. So I began to study. (more…)