rummuser,
I read Viktor Frankl years ago, but that quote didn’t stick at the time. It means a lot more now. It’s refreshing for those of us living in a youth-worshipping society. Thank you.

I am familiar with the Bette Howland one, and it’s one of my favorites. That’s also refreshing because we hear so much about how we should be goal-oriented. That doesn’t make sense to me. It’s fine to have a sense of direction, but when one is mainly focused on future achievements, we’re essentially saying the present isn’t worth anything.

I get inspired about life in general and mine in particular by going back often to Viktor Frankl. I quote and I hope that you will get inspired too.

“…..the opportunities to act properly, the potentialities to fulfill a meaning, are affected by the irreversibility of our lives. But also the potentialities alone are so affected. For as soon as we have used an opportunity and have actualized a potential meaning, we have done so once and for all. We have rescued it into the past, nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured. To be sure, people tend to see only the stubble field of transitoriness but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity.

From this one may see that there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past – the potentialities that they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized – and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.”

Viktor E Frankl – Man’s Search for Meaning.

Another quote that I love to refer to is –
“For a long time it seemed to me that real life was about to begin, but there was always some obstacle in the way. Something had to be got through first, some unfinished business; time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.” ~ Bette Howland

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No, but I’ve been on a mountain with my hair standing on end. Only once. When you live in the mountains & you hike, it can happen. Now we have good weather reports which help avoid electrical storms.