In my previous post, Caught Between Self-Sabotage and Learning, I explored why humans have the greatest capacity for both self-sabotage and unlimited learning. In this post, I attempt to transcend our paradoxical nature.

The Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl's essential teaching is:

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space.

In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response.

In our response lies our growth and our happiness.” (Stephen R. Covey in Pattakos & Dundon, 2017)

Viktor Frankl is saying that there is a small yet significant space in our minds—between stimulus and response. Let's take a moment to gaze into the depths of that space. What can we discover in the depths of our mind?

Every stimulus begins as an event: a sensation, an emotion, a tension, or an impulse. Every stimulus can become a memory. This level is not entirely under our control; it happens to us. The range of experiences we can have varies greatly, from sitting safely by the fireplace at home to wandering around homeless in a foreign culture while fleeing violence........

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