Viktor Frankl was arrested and transported to a Nazi concentration camp with his wife and parents in 1942.
At the time, Frankl was a prominent Jewish psychiatrist and neurologist in Vienna, and after being in the concentration camp for three years, he was eventually liberated (although most of his family had sadly died in the camps). Only Frankl and his sister had survived.
After the war he published Man’s Search for Meaning, a book inspired by his experiences in the camps, and one that has helped many people in times of difficulty.
As Frankl saw in the camps, those who found meaning even in the most difficult of circumstances were far more resilient to suffering than those who did not.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Frankl wrote:
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.”
Frankl worked as a therapist in the camps, and in his book he describes two suicidal inmates he encountered there. He says the men were hopeless and thought that there was nothing more to expect from life, and to live for. And this was a common attitude that many others in the camp shared, especially under the horrific circumstances.
Frankl writes:
“In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them. For one man, it was his young child, who was then living in a foreign country. For the other, a scientist, it was a series of books that he needed to finish.”
“This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.”
Man’s Search for Meaning was named one of the 10 most influential books in the United States by the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club.
“It is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to ‘be happy.’ But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to ‘be happy.'” – Frankl
Do you agree with Frankl’s thoughts on meaningfulness?
[Featured Image Credit: gmx.at]