Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything

by Viktor E. Frankl

Then he suddenly burst into tears, and the venerable, world-famous old man whose hands I was holding wept softly like a little child: “I can’t stand it, there is no point in living life as a cripple,” he whimpered. Then I looked him in the eye and asked him insistently, but facetiously: “Tell me, Your Honor, do you intend to pursue a successful career as a short- or long-distance runner?” He looked up, astonished. “Because then,” I continued, “but only then, would I be able to understand your despair and your previous statement; because then you would have played your last card, for then your further life, your living on, would be pointless for you: because you would no longer be capable of being a short- or a long-distance runner. But beyond that, for a man like you who has led his whole life in a highly meaningful way, who has been effective and made a name for himself in the professional world—for such a man, should the whole of life have lost its meaning just because he has lost a leg?”