“In spite of all the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of the life in a concentration camp, it was possible for spiritual life to deepen. Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less.
They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom.”
That’s what Viktor E. Frankl— a Holocaust survivor has to say about living in Auschwitz.
I’m reading Man’s Search For Meaning, and this part really resonated with me, and I’m pretty sure it can with you as well.
Life is not just the physical world around us, it’s also spiritual. How we perceive the “real world” is— at a large percentage—due to our mind.
Yes, there are physical stimuli, and yes they’re very real, but your thoughts, emotions, and memories, shape your interpretation of the real world.
All these Auschwitz prisoners were denied their freedom and they were treated like animals. They would work countless hours, be tortured, get frostbite, starve to death, die from a variety of different diseases, and yet there were a lot of them who were able to survive all of this.
Why you may ask?
Even though their body was trapped behind this deadly barbwire, their mind was free. And that’s what matters.
You might think that the physical world might constrain you, but that’s not true, your mind does.
There might be times were you feel weak, like you can’t live without social media, you get FOMO, your anxiety starts acting up again, you’re bored, alone, having to deal with thoughts that were way deep inside your brain, locked inside a box with better security than Fort Knox itself, but that’s all because you make it this way.
The stronger your mindset, the freer you are, and that’s a fact.
So… Before you delete your social media you should prepare for it in a very simple way.
Start reading
Start looking after yourself
Find a balanced diet
Strengthen your relationships with the people close to you
Start exercising
Do all these things, and you’ll notice that your body will naturally drift away from social media.
What are you waiting for?