BOOK OF THE WEEK: "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl

It is a classic. I've always seen it in the Harvard COOP while perusing the store, but I never picked it up in bought it - until a few weeks ago. And boy was it one of the best things I've ever done (well that and maybe accepting an offer to work at Harvard). 

Jewish psychiatrist Viktor Frankl lived in Austria and was one of the people taken to work in multiple different concentration camps - including the fabled Auschwitz - across Eastern Europe under Hitler's regime during World War II. He penned Man's Search For Meaning to give a visual description about what life from the inside of a concentration camp as well as teach us to find meaning in the terrible things that happen. Suffering is an inevitable part of life, but we have to learn to cope and move forward. 

There was one time during Frankl's three years inside a labor camp that was really insightful. He was amongst a group of prisoners that was moved for a brief period of time form Auschwitz to another location (Dachau). This camp had no crematorium and no gas so prisoners could not be taken straight to the gas chamber, they would have to wait for one of the "sick convoys" to take them to Auschwitz. Because these prisoners would have to wait there was no immediate fear in their minds that they could be executed at any moment since the camp had no way to do so and had to wait for transportation to another camp. 

This made the prisoners who visited Dachau from other camps, like Frankl, incur a feeling of envy. Dachau prisoners didn't have the same worries and were able to communicate with outside family members that Frankl and his fellow Auschwitz prisoners did not have. But you also have think that prisoners who lived permanently in the Dachau camp, probably did not recognize they have it better. 

When a situation is all that we know, we don't realize how good we may have it, because that is all we know. And it works the other way as well. For example in the prison camp example, if all you ever knew was Auschwitz, you would think all camps are like Auschwitz and all prisoners have the same fears, when that is not the case. 

I think back to my time at Newbury where we literally had nothing in terms of facilities. When people from outside the New England region would come to campus - like they occasionally did - one of the first questions was "I don't see any fields." The answer from us was pretty straight forward "well ... there aren't any ... on campus." It was tough for people to wrap their head around jumping in a 15-passenger van and drive to and from practice, every, single day. If you were a student-athlete and missed the van, well you missed the van, you had to figure out how to get yourself there. 

On game-days forgetting something was the worst. If you left a ream of paper or an ink cartridge in your desk drawer and you were already at the gym, it was a 15-minute drive back to campus and you just prayed you didn't hit all the red lights. I've done it before and it was not an enviable position to be in, but at the time it was all that I knew. 

When I got to Harvard, everything was right there, if you forgot something it was a two minute walk back to the office. There were some exceptions like wrestling, volleyball and fencing all still had offices and team rooms across the river in the Malkin Athletic Center. That made me reflect back to my Newbury days and really think about not leaving anything back in the office, because it was not a quick walk back - especially if it was in the middle of January with snow, ice and freezing temperatures. 

It all comes down to perspective and the experiences of all involved. Something to really think about.