When I read “Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl, I was passing through what I now love to call “hell.” In this book, I found the light I desperately needed, I found meaning and embraced dangerous hope.
With outstanding details, Victor Frank, a Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, chronicles his experience at the Nazi concentration camp of 1942 which was supposed to be a temporary holding camp. In this memoir, he narrates the story of an unrelenting struggle for daily bread and for life itself. Victor delves into the 4 phases of psychological reactions to suffering and presents logotherapy in a nutshell. Here are 8 key lessons I gleaned from the book:
1. Freedom of Choice: Despite the psychic and physical stress of prison life, Frankl’s story offers sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: “the last of the human freedom – to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” There are always choices to make. Every hour offered the opportunity to make a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to the powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your freedom. Man is therefore not a product of conditional and environmental factors.
2. The size of human suffering is absolutely relative. A man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly no matter how big the chamber. It is the same way suffering can fill the soul completely not minding if the suffering is great or little. Frankl’s story reveals to me that the greatness in size of suffering is in the mind of the one who suffers. Hence, it is not for us to pass judgement on the man who suffers.
3. Man’s ability to endure suffering is infinite: I do not know if this is supposed to be considered a positive. But man can get used to just anything. He violates sciences, he can turn all the research results in textbooks into lies. Man just has the capacity to endure anything and everything life throws at him, and there’s no way I know of to explain it better.
4. Sense of humor: As a coping mechanism, most of the prisoners developed a grim sense of humor. They knew that they had nothing to lose except their ridiculously naked lives so they tried very hard to make fun of themselves and of each other. In Victor’s exact words, “Humor is one of the weapons of the soul in the fight for self-preservation. It is a trick learned while mastering the art of living.” And as my friend, Younglan would always say, “Man must laugh at man to avoid crying for man.”
5. The Power of Hope: There is a close connection between the state of mind of a man – his courage and hope, or the lack of them – and the state of immunity of his body. A sudden loss of hope can have a deadly effect on the health of a man. A man who has lost faith in the future is subject to some form of spiritual and physical decay. Hence, any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength must first succeed in showing him some future goal and igniting some flame of hope. Nietzche’s words put it better, “He who has a why to live for can survive with almost any how.”
6. The Search for Meaning: Our hopes, goals and therefore the meaning of life differ from man to man and from moment to moment. It is thus, impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. However, if a man attaches a goal to his suffering, his suffering finds meaning. He begins to see it as an opportunity for an achievement.
One should not search for an abstract meaning of life. Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out. Therein, he cannot be replaced. Man’s goal is to find out what that is for him. When you stop asking “What is the meaning of my life?”, switch the question, and assume life is asking you, “What is the meaning of your life?” you move closer to finding an answer.
7. The Role of Love and Relationships: Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. Frankl describes love as the ultimate and highest goal that a man can aspire. The salvation of a man is through love and in love, for a man who has nothing left in this world and suffers still may know bliss be it only for a moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.
8. The Case for Tragic Optimism: In brief, tragic optimism means that one is, and remains optimistic despite the tragic “triad” as it is called in logotherapy, a triad which consists of Pain, Guilt, and Death. This part of the book showed me how it is possible to say yes to life despite the triad.
This is where I call it a wrap. I hope this inspires you too to pick up the book and read
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