Always A Choice

We always have a choice. We can't choose our temperament. We can't choose our circumstances. However, given all the many things that we cannot choose we still always have a choice. And that is one of the things that can make a life meaningful no matter what the circumstance.

A case in point: Holocaust victims, confined to a squalid life inside of Auschwitz. Although these men and women were stripped of almost all their human dignities, there was something that the Nazis could not touch. Most of those in the concentration camps succumbed to hopelessness and despair and reduced themselves to treating themselves and other's around them as less-than-human. An extraordinary few, though, chose to continue to treat themselves and others with dignity and kindness, even at the risk of their own lives. These few, in the most dire circumstances, show us that we always have a choice. Those choices, as hard as they may be, can bring meaning, love and hope to any circumstance.