There's More to Life Than Being Happy
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/
In September 1942, Viktor Frankl, a prominent Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna, was arrested and transported to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents. Three years later, when his camp was liberated, most of his family, including his pregnant wife, had perished -- but he, prisoner number 119104, had lived. In his bestselling 1946 book, Man's Search for Meaning, which he wrote in nine days about his experiences in the camps, Frankl concluded that the difference between those who had lived and those who had died came down to one thing: Meaning, an insight he came to early in life. When he was a high school student, one of his science teachers declared to the class, "Life is nothing more than a combustion process, a process of oxidation." Frankl jumped out of his chair and responded, "Sir, if this is so, then what can be the meaning of life?"
As he saw in the camps, those who found meaning even in the most horrendous circumstances were far more resilient to suffering than those who did not. "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing," Frankl wrote in Man's Search for Meaning, "the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
Frankl worked as a therapist in the camps, and in his book, he gives the example of two suicidal inmates he encountered there. Like many others in the camps, these two men were hopeless and thought that there was nothing more to expect from life, nothing to live for. "In both cases," Frankl writes, "it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them." For one man, it was his young child, who was then living in a foreign country. For the other, a scientist, it was a series of books that he needed to finish. Frankl writes:
This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."
= new reply since forum marked as read
If my right wing father is ever in threat of being sent to a consentration camp, I'll consider sticking around. 
"It really is NOT what we have, or can Buy/Steal/Claim/Gain that is the source of "happiness'.
It is what we can Let-Go-Of that frees us up to find the happiness that is available. "
+1 Well said! And something I need to keep reminding myself. 
Who were "The Hippies"?
Do you know?
The Hippies were relatively small in number, but had a huge impact on America.
So much of an impact that even today, 40 years later, some people are still angrily accusing them of "selling out".
There were several distinct movements during that time.
The biggest was the Anti-WAR movement.
They borrowed a lot of the music and symbols of the Hippies,
and the Hippies sheltered many of the Draft Dodgers.
While "The Hippies" were Anti-WAR, not everybody who was Anti-WAR was a Hippie.
The Vietnam War ended in 73, and the antiwar movement went home to the suburbs.
Madison Avenue and and other Commercial Predators "borrowed" a lot of the symbols associated with The Hippies, and wrung every penny out of it they could by selling that junk to gullible Americans, but it wasn't The Hippies that did that.
The Hippies were laughing at anyone that was foolish enough to buy that crap
and believe that by putting on some "Love Beads" they would magically become a "Hippie".
Then there were The Slackers & Stoners (non-contributors just like today) who hung around The Hippies for the dope, but were not really Hippies.
They all went to jail or to rehab.
We're getting old now, and many are gone,
but The Hippies are still with us, all across America.
We all know each other,
and even have a secret handshake and use a secret eye blink code to communicate with each other. We've moved beyond the banality of mere words.
We simply KNOW.
Sometimes, a stranger passing through will Look Up in a rare moment of clarity and say,"Hey, you guys are old Hippies, aren't you."
And we will just smile the "secret" smile of non acknowledgement.
If you would like to find some Hippies, go to the farmers markets, or Craft Fairs,
or small town Arts & Craft Shops. Old Hippies will be running those.
The most creative artists you find there will be Old Hippies.
That is how we pay our taxes and keep our land.
Try it out.
Go to a craft fair, find a relaxed vendor that looks over 60,
sitting in a back corner, quietly working on his/her next piece.
Pretend to be looking at something on the table,
then look up and say, "Hey, You're and old Hippie, aren't you."
THEN, you will get to see the Secret Smile.
---bvar22 & Starkraven
Living Well on a low Taxable Income,
and stuff we learned in the 60s!
