Agency is fundamental: Attitude is our choice.

I read this quote this morning.  It is a quote out of the book "Man's Search for Meaning" written by Dr. Viktor Frankl, and Australian neurologist, psychiatrist, and World War II concentration camp survivor.

"The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action.  There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed.  Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.  We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.  They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing:  the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.  Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.  Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him -- mentally and spiritually.  He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp..... I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost...  They way in which man accepts his fate and all the suffering in entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity --- even in the most difficult circumstances -- to add a deeper meaning to life."