The Third Aspect of the Tragic Triad

Life is irreversible. The radical accceptance of this truth has brought me peace in life. I have an anxiety disorder and my biggest issue for a long time was spiraling about past events. I would just repeat them in my mind over and over, trying to figure out how I could have done better. I had to learn how to let go of trying to change the past. Frankl takes this a step further by saying that once a moment is past, it is not gone but stored. Your past experiences are “safe” in a way. He then goes on to talk about how old people have less “potential” but more actual life experiences and that we should value that. I agree that we should value more life experiences but I don’t necessarily think old people have less potential. In addition to that, in capitalist society, we tend to value people based on if they are employable which Frankl heavily criticizes because he watched people who were considered “unvaluable” be killed in concentration camps. I think it’s really damaging to our society that we think if someone doesn’t have a job, they are useless. And so many people are forced to base their lives around what they do for work otherwise they won’t survive.

Finally, I related to his sentiment near the end of the chapter that Life is one big joke. There is no justice in the world, we just have to take the cards we were dealt and make the best of it.