8Look at Yourself from a Distance

We know that humor is a paramount way of putting distance between something and oneself. One might say as well, that humor helps man rise above his own predicament by allowing him to look at himself in a more detached way.76

The ad in a London newspaper read, “Unemployed. Brilliant mind offers its services completely free; the survival of the body must be provided for by adequate salary.” Viktor Frankl quoted this ad in his book The Doctor and the Soul to make an important point about the different ways in which people may respond to being unemployed. Frankl was not suggesting that unemployment is not a serious matter; on the contrary, he emphasizes that being unemployed is a “tragedy because a job is the only ...

Get Prisoners of Our Thoughts, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.