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Comment by maeon3 | Hacker News Reader

Don't let your surroundings determine your mental state. The guys who survived the concentration camps in Germany were the ones who had found peace, meaning and value in their lives even in the worst condition imaginable. Practice being happy for no other reason then choosing to be happy. I'll add years to your life.

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The guys who survived the concentration camps in Germany were the ones who had found peace, meaning and value in their lives even in the worst condition imaginable.

Do you have any evidence?

Victor Frankl - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning

(thank you tomedme for the URL correction)

Correct wikipedia URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning

Who said that? Memoirs from survivors suggest that (as one would expect) the experience left them scarred for the rest of their lives.

Some. Memoirs from some survivors suggest that. Memoirs from other survivors suggest otherwise. The long-term response to the trauma varied, widely.

Point to the memoirs from survivors that suggest otherwise...

Frankl is the canonical example. But also telling is the portion of Spiegelman's "Maus" which tells of his release from Auschwitz, entitled "And now my troubles began..."

Spiegelman's father, not him. Downvote all you want, but trying to find the positive side of of concentration camps, trying to find why you're world view is validated by anecdotes from those experiences, its really lame.

I know it is Spiegelman's father: it is a memoir of Spiegelman Sr's experiences, as told to Spiegelman, but that's neither here nor there.

The point is not that anyone is trying to find the positive side of concentration camps, as if such a thing existed. The point is that some people managed to keep their spirits intact, and, in the words of the poster above, find peace, meaning and value in their lives even in the worst condition imaginable.

Is it lame to remember that even when we can't control our external circumstances, we still have some ability to control our response to those circumstances?

Using the holocaust to prove your self-help mantras is pretty indefensible.

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