Man's Search for Meaning: Find What is Worth Suffering For

A young psychiatrist was waiting in line outside a Nazi concentration camp in September of 1942. The extent of the horrors carried out by the Nazi regime was unknown at the time. The prisoners soon realized how hopeless their situation was, having initially believed they were entering a temporary holding camp. They had their arms tattooed with a serial number, their heads shaved, their personal belongings taken, and everything about their former lives appeared to be lost. Even though the young psychiatrist was depressed and hopeless, he was able to find purpose in his suffering.

This is the story that Victor Frankl shares in his book Man's Search for Meaning. Frankl blends his own philosophical reflections with a story of everyday life for the average Holocaust prisoner throughout the entire book. Frankl was thrown into one of the scariest situations in human history. However, it didn't stop him from creating a novel form of therapy known as logotherapy and writing a memoir about his experiences. Frankl's analysis of meaning and logotherapy is the antidote to suffering that we all need in life. The book has been translated into more than 24 languages and has sold over 10 million copies since its 1947 publication.

Man's Search for Meaning explores how meaning can be found in the most unlikely places, including the terrible conditions of Nazi-era concentration camps in Germany. As a Holocaust survivor, Frankl talks about the lessons he learned and how his experiences influenced his interpretation of meaning. Frankl skillfully explains the will to meaning, his renowned Logotherapy and the ultimate purpose of life.

The Will to Meaning

Throughout his three-year imprisonment, Viktor Frankl discovered that there are three paths to meaning-finding in life: suffering, love and work. This idea became known as The Will To Meaning.

When Frankl would daydream about his post-release work, he would imagine himself publishing his book, expanding on his theories about Logotherapy, and making even more contributions to psychology. For instance, Frankl's almost finished manuscript was taken from him upon his initial arrival at Auschwitz. He would frequently picture this manuscript in his mind and rewrite it over and over. This was just one way that, in spite of everything, he managed to find meaning in life.

The importance of Frankl's wife is among the most tragic examples he gives. When Frankl and his wife arrived at the camp, they were apart. He had no idea when he would see her again or where she was. His mind was always filled with the idea of seeing his wife again. He claimed at certain points to have felt her presence physically. He eventually discovered that his spouse died in Auschwitz, most likely not far from his own barracks. Frankl kept going nevertheless. 

Frankl's way of thinking provided him purpose and enabled him to overcome the hardships of daily life in the camps where he was held captive, Dachau and Auschwitz. He focused on finding significance in each and every moment rather than dwelling on the life he had left behind. Frankl used to pass the time by thinking about the things that meant something to him, whether it was the idea of being reunited with his wife or his ongoing thought of the concepts of Logotherapy. He discovered purpose in his suffering, which is a universal human experience.

The Power of Spirituality 

Even though every prisoner suffered severe physical and mental suffering, they could still feel a strong sense of spirituality. Those who had grown used to a rich intellectual life but were overly sensitive suffered greatly from the outside because they were generally not as strong. Frankl claimed that their inner selves, however, had far less damage. There's a reason why prisoners with smaller statures managed to make it through the camps. The reason for this is that they were able to withdraw within themselves and live a life of spiritual freedom and inner abundance. 

This was the only thing that kept Frankl alive during an especially hard march in the snow. He did this in order to survive. Frankl takes the reader through the sheer agony of that day as they travel in the bitter cold and endure constant yelling from the Nazi soldiers who were beating people for moving slowly or for covering their ears with a cap to stay warm. A man walking beside Frankl at the time muttered, "If our wives could see us now! It is my sincere hope that they are happy in their camps and are unaware of our situation.

Frankl immediately moved into his own thoughts after hearing the comment. He thought of his wife, the way she would smile and talk with him. Though it was only a beautiful diversion from his reality, such a thought was nonetheless. One that helped him realize that what really enabled those who endure hardship to go on in spite of their circumstances is love. Even then, able to retreat within himself, Frankl continued on that terrible journey through the dead of winter. He soon discovered that although a person's body could be crushed, broken, and made to kneel, their spirit would never give up. Frankl and a few other people were only able to survive because of this.

Frankl’s Logotherapy

Man's Search for Meaning could be argued to be almost exclusively about Viktor Frankl's Logotherapy, both in demonstrating its use and clarifying the true science behind it later in the book. The field of psychology known as logotherapy is dedicated to assisting individuals in discovering purpose in their lives. The idea was also known as the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy" in honor of Alfred Adler and Sigmund Freud's earlier contributions. Frankl, in contrast to Freud and Adler, thought that the primary driving force in a person's life is their search for existential meaning. 

Frankl contended that existential therapy is necessary because, among other reasons, we suffer a great deal when we don't know what our purpose in life is. This is what psychologist Viktor Frankl called existential frustration—a kind of anxiety that really hurts our mental health. Frankl describes existential despair as a depressed state where we completely doubt the purpose of life as a result of this. Frankl provides personal testimony from his time in the concentration camp to bolster this theory, illustrating how frequently he witnessed people who had no purpose in life struggle to survive.

He wanted to build on the individualistic and psychoanalytic concepts proposed by Adler and Freud when he created Logotherapy. Frankl observed that no psychologist before him had really addressed the central force that motivates each and every one of us. Thousands of people have benefited from logotherapy since the book's 1947 publication, helping them to overcome a variety of psychological problems. Eventually, the school of thought helped to establish cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), a treatment that psychologists still employ today. 

The Meaning of Life

The traditional perspective on life's purpose typically entails an ongoing, unchanging task. It is presumed that those who find fulfillment in being musicians practice every day. This holds true for authors, artists, and business owners alike. Frankl, however, views meaning somewhat differently. Frankl contends that meaning is both subjective and dynamic, rejecting the idea of a single, unchanging meaning. Finding what matters to us in each moment is essential to living a meaningful life. Meaning requires a certain kind of mindfulness, a level of concentrated attention where we have to focus on figuring out what we find meaningful.

According to Frankl, we frequently ask ourselves "meaning" when considering our purpose in life. When we ask the question backwards, as though it were being presented to us instead, the meaning problem is much easier to solve. In the last chapters of Man's Search for Meaning, Frank writes In the end, man must acknowledge that he is the one asking questions about the purpose of his life rather than trying to answer them for himself. To put it simply, life asks questions of every man, and the only way he can respond to these questions is by answering for his own life. It's normal for our ambitions and goals to shift over time. We must embrace goals that are worth suffering for if life is genuinely miserable. We discover the purpose we seek as we battle to meet them and deal with life's inherent difficulties. As he writes, "What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him," Frankl strengthens this very idea.

If suffering is the condition of existence, then the purpose of life is to pursue our meaningful goals despite this circumstance.

5 Best Quotes From Man’s Search for Meaning

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” 

“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.”

“But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”“So live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”