My friend and inspiration, ELS Teacher Kathy Sosa, needs help in getting her class of refugee midde-school students to the beloved home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Hyde Park New York.
Her public school in Albany has no money to fund the trip, so I offered to try to raise the money for her class to go. She is putting together an estimate – a school bus for a day, some food, and admission. She has 30 students, but some of them may not be able to go.
When she figures out the cost, I’ll try to raise the money on the blog. I admire Kathy greatly, she is the very dedicated teacher who helped get Eh K Pru Shee Wah into the Albany Academy. We are working together to get full scholarships to some very good schools for gifted refugee students.
Kathy has what I call a “will to meaning.” She has three or four different jobs, some in different schools. She is always fighting to teach her students and improve their lives. I think people with a “will to meaning” are sacred.
The most fundamental human characteristic, wrote the philosopher Viktor Frankl in his book A Man’s Will To Meaning, is our possession of what he called “a will to meaning.”
We need a sense that our lives matter, without that we struggle. History suggests that when people feel they make a difference, they find is easier to survive difficult times and hardships.
On psychologist wrote that suffering all by itself may not destroy people, but suffering without meaning will.
There are all kinds of reasons why people’s lives matter to them. They might contribute to the lives of other people, they might have acquired learning in their profession, deep friends, a love of art, or perhaps a sense of mission guided by strong values.
I believe that meaning is essential no matter how my life is, good times or bad.
I have a will to meaning. I didn’t always have one, and the difference is profound. I believe a decade ago, after my divorce and other troubles piled up just ahead of the Great Recession, I had lost a will to meaning, I had given up on love, sex, and a sense of purpose in my life.
I had given up on life, to be frank.
I have all of those things now, although.
In my work at the Mansion, I see that old age can bring loss of hope, loss of faith, the absence of a sense of purpose in life. One of the Mansion residents told me that her purpose in life, her will to meaning, is to be a friend to the other residents. She works hard at is, she is vibrant and engaged.
I believe I will always have the power to decide what meaning I will choose, and who I wish to be and am. Concentration camp survivors wrote that everything can be taken from a human being one of the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s own way, own sense of purpose, own will to meaning.
People like Kathy Saso not only have a will to meaning, they provide one for people like me. If I can’t be here, I can help her, that defines me and gives me the strongest will to meaning I remember having (maybe becoming a writer was as strong or even stronger).
If she decides she can go ahead with the trip, I’ll ask for help in helping Kathy and her class of refugee and immigrant students (she teaches English as a second language) setting to see the home of one of America’s most influential and beloved presidents.
It’s something she very much wants them to see. It gives me meaning in my life, and hopefully, yours as well.