I was hopeless when my sister gave me this book called Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. The book is a meditation on what the gruesome experience of Auschwitz taught Frankl about the primary purpose of life: the quest for meaning, which sustained those who survived.

I read the book in one night and have since read / listened to it many times over. The book is still with me on a day-to-day basis. Frankl views suffering not as an obstacle to happiness but often the necessary means to it, less a pathology than a path.

”If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity - even under the most difficult circumstances - to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.

Such men are not only in concentration camps. Everywhere man is confronted with fate, with the chance of achieving something through his own suffering.”

Looking back, I can shout to the world “I went through it all!” The suffering of becoming blind had become an inspiration. It had become a trophy. It had become an achievement that no one can ever steal.

To quote Frankl; “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.”

Not exactly on topic, but for me, socializing with other blind people and trying blind sports helped me greatly after I was declared legally blind in late 2016.

Not a series, but a song- I loved listening to Last Hope by paramore in my early VI days. I was a wee bit of a dramatic teen and the lyrics just spoke to me and helped me get through those initial lonely overwhelming days