What differentiates man from animals is the ability to look forward to tomorrow and to look beyond the externals. While man can see beauty in a flower and think of either God or a loved person and even of love itself, a beast will stop short at seeing the flower as something good to eat or not.
What makes man worthy of the same name is his capacity to see beyond the here and now and perceive meanings.
In his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl describes his experiences at the Nazi concentration camp where he was detained during World War II. In the concentration camp the prisoners were stripped of everything that made them experience personal worth: name, respect, profession, family, knowledge, wealth, etc.
He noted that some of the prisoners gave up surviving when everything that made them feel that were someone was taken away.
Others got crazy and behaved even worse than beast, capable of killing another man for a loaf of stale bread or a rotting potato. And, finally, he noted that those who had something or someone considered more precious than their own lives never lost their will to live even as they were not afraid to either suffer or die.
From this experience, he believes that man’s life and even just his survival is determined by what meanings he perceives and chooses to live and die for.
We can push the statement further by saying that a person is worth what he chooses to live and die for. Heroes and saints, as well as villains and criminals, are a proof of this statement. If heroes and saints are great, it is because they have chosen to live and die for for causes and meanings greater than themselves or things lower than themselves to live and die, like money or power.
How a man discovers what meaning to give his life is a story of both the environment he lives in and the choices he makes. What counts is what values in life he discovers and ultimately makes his own. “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.” (Mt 6:21)
One of the most trying things about being young is that of being in a stage where one has to choose what values to live and die for. Human society is full of models and examples of persons who have embraced their own values. If there are rock stars and actors and actresses making it to the limelight and to wealth, there are also those who, like Francis of Assisi of long time ago, leave behind them a life of ease and comfort to pursue ideals of nobility and service. And what is awful is that today’s young man or woman is left alone to choose.
To discover which model one has to choose, one need not look beyond or outside himself. Instead, one should look into his heart. If he does, he will surely discover passions and drives that are either constructive or destructive: his capacity to love or hate, to give or possess, to build or destroy, to forgive or avenge. When he chooses what is positive and shuns what is negative, he will naturally discover what model or example to embrace. And there he will discover the meaning in his life.
Excerpted from: PRESENCE: Prayers for Busy People