What the Snowstorm Taught Me
The pause that reveals what you're living for
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing:
the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude
in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
-Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
Every January, after the new year settles and the noise of the holidays fades, I re-read the same book.
Not for new information. For recalibration.
Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning has been part of my life for over two decades. I return to it because some books don’t comfort you. They correct you.
This year, I read it during a snowstorm.
The Line That Stopped Me
It was late January, and two feet of snow fell over a single weekend. The world outside went quiet. I opened Frankl.
I was almost a year out from leaving my last corporate role. Three months into building this newsletter. Still in a transition I couldn’t fully name.
And this line stopped me:
“It is possible to have enough to live by but nothing to live for; to have the means but no meaning.”
I had read this before, but I hadn’t lived it yet.
The First Reading
I first read Frankl in college, during a philosophy course called “Death & Dying.”
At twenty, the book was heartbreaking. A mirror to what horrors mankind is capable of. But even then, it offered something powerful: the idea that despite everything being taken away, one freedom remains. The freedom to choose your own response.
One passage hit me like a thunderbolt:
“Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
I was standing at a crossroads, just beginning to move out from under my parents’ umbrella into building my own life. Frankl gave me my first real introduction to agency.
The idea that my life wasn’t just happening to me. That I had a say in who I was becoming.
The Retirement Home
As part of that course, we visited a retirement home. I was twenty years old. Aging and death felt distant to me. Something that happened to other people.
But what I saw that afternoon stayed with me.
There were residents who had lost significant physical abilities. Some needed help with basic tasks. Some couldn’t leave their rooms. And yet they had hope. Courage. They found joy in daily activities, in visits from family, in small rituals that gave their days shape.
Then there were residents who seemed physically stronger. More mobile. More capable. But they had lost their will. A kind of emptiness behind their eyes. The staff told us that those residents often don’t live much longer.
Same circumstances. Different responses.
One group had found something to live for. The other had stopped looking.
Two Decades Later
Twenty years changes what you hear in a book. Not because the words change, but because you do.
I have experienced suffering and understood it was mine to carry and learn from. I’ve seen what happens when the story you’ve been telling yourself stops working.
Frankl didn’t just survive the camps. He watched. He noticed who survived and who didn’t. The ones who held onto a “why” outlasted those who were physically stronger but spiritually empty.
Sitting in that snowstorm, building something new, I finally understood what he was saying about means and meaning.
You can have enough to live by and still be lost.
The Coordinate: Exhale Stillness
In the ENOUGH Compass, Exhale Stillness means pause before you plan.
We’re trained to keep moving. Solve the problem. Fill the silence. Reach the next milestone. But the pause is where meaning resurfaces.
Frankl’s entire insight depends on a pause. The space between what happens to you and how you respond. The freedom to choose your attitude exists only if you slow down enough to access it.
Every January, I return to this book because it forces me to stop.
Ask yourself:
If someone asked what gives your life meaning right now, what would you say?
When was the last time you paused long enough to remember your “why”?
What ritual helps you recalibrate when the noise gets too loud?
What the Culture of More Gets Wrong
We optimize for means. Security. Stability. Enough to live by.
We assume meaning will follow once we get there.
Frankl says it works the other way.
This is scarcity versus sufficiency with purpose.
Scarcity says: secure the foundation first. Meaning is a luxury for after you’ve made it.
Sufficiency says: meaning is the foundation. Without a “why,” no amount of security will feel like enough.
A Small Practice
This week, find your pause.
Not a vacation or a full day off. Just a moment of stillness where you can ask: what am I living for right now?
If the answer doesn’t come easily, that’s information. Not a crisis. Just a signal that you might need more of these pauses, not fewer.
The snowstorm forced me inside. I could have filled the silence with Netflix, scrolling, or busywork. Instead, I chose recalibration.
You don’t need two feet of snow to do the same.
See you next week.
P.S. I’d love to know: is there a book you return to again and again? What does it help you to remember?