Several weeks ago, I mentioned re-reading Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. If you haven’t read it, I think it would be worth your time to check it out from the library. It’s even one of those books that I’d suggest you just buy, because you’ll probably read it more than once. Every time I read it, I get new insight into how I can give my life meaning and purpose.
As background, Viktor Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist. And he was a Holocaust survivor. In Man’s Search for Meaning, he described the conditions he endured and wrote about his fellow prisoners, some of whom he felt had given up and others who kept hope alive.
Frankl’s wisdom and advice can work for anyone, whether you are going through a rough patch or not. Following are a few lessons I’ve pulled from Man’s Search for Meaning. I hope they resonate with you as well.
Attitude Is Everything
“The last freedom is choosing your attitude.”
Go back to nearly any blog post published on this site and you’ll see some form of an admonition that says this very same thing.
My sons get so tired of me reminding them of this. Someone messes up at work and one of them has to fix the errors – they can either be miserable and still have to do the work or change their attitude and at least not hate it. By hanging on to negative feelings for someone who didn’t do what they were supposed to, that person isn’t impacted at all. The only one who suffers is them.
Change Is Necessary
“Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”
Change can be difficult and scary, but sometimes it’s necessary. “We’ve always done it that way” is one of those sentences that we need to eliminate from our language. Life would be really boring if everything always stayed the same.
We Learn About Ourselves With Every Experience
“For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.”
Everyone has a story that makes other people shake their heads and be grateful the story isn’t theirs. The stories that impact me the most are those showing a resilient person who has every reason to complain and cry: “Poor me,” but doesn’t. Instead, that person keeps moving forward and uses the experience to learn and grow.
I’ve known many people like that, and they seem to be the most upbeat and positive people on the planet. I love being around them because the positivity rubs off on me and I stop attending my own pity parties.
There Is Purpose To Suffering
“What is to give light must endure burning.”
A few months ago, I wrote about how you can’t get a rainbow without rain. Cloudy, rainy days bring flowers and bees and gardens. New life.
You can’t build up muscle without breaking it down first and then strengthening it. Kintsugi is the Japanese art of making flaws obvious by using gold to hold the broken pieces together. Embracing flaws and imperfections can create an even stronger, more beautiful piece of art.
You Can't Make Me
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
This is another variation on the fact that we choose how we respond to others. Someone doesn’t make us do anything. We choose to do the thing in response to someone else’s activities.
Remember how we were taught that we should stop and count to 10 before responding in anger. That 10-count gives you the time to think about what comes next. You can either be snarky or understanding. It’s all up to you!
Be The Change
“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Be the change you want to see in the world. Don’t leave the responsibility all up to someone else. When you say “Why doesn’t someone do something?” what you’re really saying is “I don’t like that situation but I don’t feel I have the power to impact it so I’m going to leave the changing up to someone else.”
Step out in faith and courage. Make a move. Take the next step and then the next and the next.
The difference between success and failure is the timing of when you stop trying.
Your Life Has Meaning
“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”
I am reminded of all the people I’ve known who worked hard for so long thinking they’d be able to do all the fun things when they retired. But once they retired, they got sick and were dead within a couple years.
You can’t put living your life off until you think you’ll have more time.
I have a writer friend who has published five novels in two different series. He was almost done with the next installment of one series and had outlines and ideas for countless other novels. He died recently, leaving all those stories locked up inside him. How fortunate he was to be able to get some of them written. But don’t die with your gifts still inside you. Take the time to live your life now. Tomorrow is not guaranteed.
Most Suffering Is Temporary
“Pain is only bearable if we know it will end, not if we deny it exists.”
This is why people who suffer from chronic pain have such a difficult time maintaining hope and positivity. If there is no expectation for the pain to end, how do you develop the ability to cope with it?
I have daily headaches. Sometimes they are pounding, nausea inducing headaches. Other times they are simple annoyances. Remembering that denying it exists really doesn’t help anyone, I try to meditate the pain away. Sometimes that works, other times not so much. But at least I have an option that sometimes achieves the ultimate goal of being headache-free.
Mental Anguish Is Just As Painful As Physical Hurts
“At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.”
I think this is one of the many reasons some of the events of recent years have affected me so much. I recognize the injustice and disregard for personal responsibility or another human’s personhood.
We all have value and a purpose. It’s up to us to figure out what that purpose is. Even someone who doesn’t talk, walk or eat by mouth has something to give the world, an impact that no one else could make.
We're All Entitled To Our Own Opinions
“Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one’s belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one’s right to believe, and obey, his own conscience.”
This is something I have thought for years. Tolerance is great, but it’s not tolerance if I have to be tolerant of your viewpoints, but you don’t have to be tolerant of mine. Just because someone doesn’t agree with us, that doesn’t mean we are supposed to hate that person. It certainly doesn’t mean physically or emotionally hurting them.
Opinions are like a$$holes. Everyone has one. What a sorry place we have become when we’re frightened of speaking our truth for fear of someone disagreeing with us and deciding it is their responsibility to silence us.
What Can You Learn?
It was so difficult to boil my favorite quotes down to the few I’ve listed here.
Why don’t you search for some meaning in any of Viktor Frankl’s texts? He wrote several books about his experiences while being held captive in Auschwitz. Then, let me know what you take away from the lessons of Viktor Frankl – the man who searched for (and found) meaning.
Until next week,
Susie from Stix-N-Stonez
1 thought on “Lessons From the Man Who Searched For Meaning”
What great quotes and insights! Thank you
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