Big Love

Two true stories that served as a salve to my heart and mind

When I was faced with very difficult life decisions I looked for distraction. I looked for anything that would help me to feel, as shutting down feelings had become a survival instinct. Along these lines, I found myself reading the nonfiction story of a man lost at sea. The book was Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan. The harrowing tale was hard to put down. Callahan faced trial after trial. Suffice it to say I was in awe of what he did to survive.

Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan

Reading Adrift buoyed my spirits in an unexpected way. The story of a man who becomes shipwrecked and is forced to survive at sea, alone. Hit after hit comes when he is living so precariously. Sharks check him out each night in his inflated raft. His water collector breaks. His skin is blisters and raw and awful. He starts to hallucinate. He has a whole thing with the fish that take up residence beneath the boat, which has become a mini ecosystem. Yet he fights off the shark. He inflates that raft enough. He fixes the water collector. He survives on the fish. His sea ordeal was a tale of strength, creativity, and surrender.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

The Jewish survivor or the Holocaust and Nazi death camps is often quoted, and I decided I wanted to hear from the source about his experience. From him I learned how quickly humans leave their values in order to survive. I learned that he never gave up on freedom. He went on to prize education and became a psychologist. He was lucky. He was grateful. He endured the worst of war, the worst of hate, but he gave of himself and served. He believed that meaning is what gets someone through the harrowing experiences of life. Gratitude for my freedoms, my life, my family filled me during and after reading this book.

Over 67,000 people are currently reading this book, and 984,000 want to read it, according to Goodreads.