The Sane Asylum Wisdom Series

“The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall 

calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. 

On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man 

who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully

 away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. 

He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all 
the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he 

is growing old? 

Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over 
his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities 

that a young person has, the future which is in store for him?

No, thank you,' he will think. 'Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, 
not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. 
sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are 
things which cannot inspire envy.' "

From "Logotherapy in a Nutshell", an essay” 
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning