We do not always have a choice as to the adversities or sufferings we may experience in our lives. But we do have the freedom and responsibility to decide how we will respond to these events. As stated by Viktor E. Frankl, a doctor of neurology and psychiatry, and a survivor of Auschwitz and other concentration camps during World War II, “Everything can be taken from a [human being] 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” (Man's Search for Meaning).
We have the potentiality to be a person who chooses to respond to life's many challenges with love, goodness, and compassion, or a person who chooses to harm ourselves or others instead. Which one is actualized depends on our decisions. An informed conscience, and surrendering ourselves to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, can guide us to make the appropriate choices. We cannot and should not abdicate to others our responsibility to choose to do, with love, what is morally right and good.