Finally.

This is something I've been meaning to do for YEARS. Getting to it—and working through it—feels pretty frickin rewarding in and of itself.

I'm sitting in my chair, feet up, hoodie on, sipping coffee. Outside, the gray can't seem to decide if it wants to be light and airy or dark and ominous. My oversized Pixar reading lamp that's not actually a Pixar reading lamp is warming things up with an ambient yellow from above. In my lap, there's a book. I actually don't know why I've been avoiding it for so long. I don't even think it's been intentional; I think I've just kept meaning to read it but never carved out the time for sitting and, well... reading it.

Until now.

Man's Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl, first published in 1946.

I know it digs into a heavier topic: a psychologist's interpretation of time spent in WWII concentration camps, Auschwitz and Dachau, from having been a prisoner there himself until liberated in 1945. But it's a relatively short book, all things considered. Apparently, he wrote it in just nine days. AND he originally wanted it to be anonymous. I guess he only added his name at the last second after reaching an agreement with his publisher that it be featured on the title page, rather than on the cover.

I've actually been to Dachau.

I was in high school and it was on a gray day very much like this one. It was one of the quietest places I've ever been. The stillness of it was... haunting. Blinking, I place my coffee on the side table next to me, on one of the blue coasters with the picture of the Tetons on it. Then I sit back and shimmy my way into the nook of the chair. Much better. Flipping open the book with an exhale, I start reading.

Mere minutes later, I place the book down. After returning from my office with a highlighter, I flip the book over to the page I was on and start gliding the pen across a few lines. It's still just the preface, but... damn.

"Don't aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself."

—Viktor E. Frankl, Vienna, Preface to the 1992 edition.

* * *

What are you aiming for?

onward.

For more on this daily column, read the backstory here. And if you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along.