Man’s Search
for Meaning (2014, first published
1946) by Victor E. Frankl
Every year I will have my
own personal retreat for a week – alone. But this year I’m going with a team to
Ba’kalalan, the Lun Bawang settlements in the northern highlands of Sarawak. I’m
at the crossroad of my life vocation now, so I choose Frankl’s Man Search for Meaning (formerly known
as From Death-Camp to Existentialism)
as my reflection book together with selected Scripture verses. Why I choose the
book title is obvious but why I choose to read memoir-history on the holocaust I’m
not so sure. Maybe I was influenced by another holocaust survivor memoir Ellis
Weasel’s Night, or maybe by The Diary of a Young Girl’s Anne Frank,
or perhaps it was Corrie Ten Boom’s The
Hiding Place, maybe it was by the fact that I’m interested in real-life
stories. Whatever influenced me, I’m glad and happy with my choice.
If you're in pain,
suffering, and depressed – read this book. If you're scared, read this book. If
you are lost, read this book. Even if you are happy right now, read this book.
If you have time, read this book. If you don't have time, read this book (slowly).
Read this book if you’re in search of meaning in your life. “One should not search for an abstract
meaning of life,” write Frankl, “Everyone
has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete
assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his
life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as is his specific
opportunity to implement it.” In other words: live intentionally. As a Christian,
I find my meaning ultimately in Jesus Christ, my Lord, and Saviour of my life. But
I also find that this book is helpful and thought-provoking – even inspiring –
in discovering the meaning of life.
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian
Jew, studied neurology and psychiatry with a focus on depression and suicide
years before being arrested and deported by the Nazis in 1942. He defied the odds
by lasting three years in concentration camps such as Auschwitz, Dachau, etc. He
lost his parents and brother and his wife, who was pregnant. As doctors were in
short supply in the camps, Frankl, after working as a slave laborer for some
time, was able to work as a physician until his liberation. As his work prior
to his time in the concentration camps had focused on depression and the
prevention of suicide, he turned his focus to his own survival story and the
people with whom he interacted in the camps. Why did some survive and others perish? What gave people the will to
live? What gives life meaning? He often asked his patients who suffer from
a multitude of torments this question: “Why
do you not commit suicide?” From their answers Frankl can often find the
guideline for his psychotherapy, namely, “In
one life there is love for one’s children to tie to; in another life, a talent
to be used; in a third, perhaps only lingering memories worth preserving.” Frankl
believes that these slender threads of a broken life should be weaved into a
firm pattern of meaning and responsibility.
Here are five (5) great
lessons that I learned from this book:
#1 Start With Why. Frankl observes: “Nietzsche’s
words, ‘He who has a why to live for
can bear with almost any how,’ could
be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychogenic efforts
regarding prisoners. Whenever there was an opportunity for it, one had to give
them a why – an aim – for their lives, in order to strengthen them to bear the
terrible how of their existence. Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life,
no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost.
The typical reply with which such a man rejected all encouraging arguments was,
‘I have nothing to expect from life anymore.’ What sort of answer can one give
to that?” Throughout the book, the author speaks deeply about his own ‘why’ and its power to help him endure
his situation. He also speaks of many prisoners who had completely lost their
‘why’ and quickly lost their life as a result. There are three ‘whys’ that stand
out from Frankl’s writing: Love, Work, and Dignity in suffering. For this first
lesson alone it is worth reading this book!
#2 Love is Powerful. One way how Frankl endured the camps was by
thinking constantly of his wife who had been separated from him long ago and
sent to a female camp (he didn’t know that she had already been killed through a gas
chamber). Even in the harshest parts of the day, exhausted, sleep-deprived,
overworked, underfed, Frankl found salvation in the love that he had for his
wife: “[My mind] clung to my wife’s
image, imaging it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me and saw her
smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more
luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.” Frankl learned that
love really does conquer all and it was an antidote to his pain. “I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret
that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of
man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in
this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the
contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man
cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may
consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in
such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries
of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.”
#3 Humans are Tough. Frankl talks of the terrifying things that happened in
the concentration camps. How he and his fellows were stripped and shaved
completely. How all of their documents and personal possessions were
confiscated and burned, including his life’s work of papers. They had
everything taken away from them – even their names! They were given and called by
numbers, not names, which were tattooed onto their skin (“We were treated like animals”). In camps, if you looked weak, you
went straight to the gas chambers to be executed or worked to death.
Families were separated. And there were other horrible things that happened to them
physically, mentally, and emotionally. “The
medical men among us learned first of all: ‘Textbooks tell lies!’” said Frankl,
“Somewhere it is said that man cannot exist without sleep for more than a
stated number of hours. Quite wrong! I had been convinced that there were
certain things I just could not do: I could not sleep without this or I could
not live with that or the other. The first night in Auschwitz we slept in beds
which were constructed in tiers. On each tier (measuring about six-and-a-half
to eight feet) slept nine men, directly on the boards. Two blankets were shared
by every nine men.” Who would have thought humans could actually endure
hell as harsh as Auschwitz?
#4 I’m Not My Environments. Frankl argues in this book that we are not bound to
our environments. The environment can be a harsh determiner of our actions but
it is not fate or fixated. We do have a choice: “The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of
action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that
apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige
of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions
of psychic and physical stress.” Frankl saw the lowest parts of humanity while
in the camps. He saw brutality, inhuman and evil deeds. But he also saw
individuals rising up like saints above it all: “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked
through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They
may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose
one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s way.”
This last sentence is my favorite! You may not have a choice in your circumstances
and environment but you always have a choice in how you react and respond to
it.
#5 Suffering Can Be Meaningful. Frankl believes that there is great meaning in suffering.
Suffering does not automatically make one’s life void of meaning but can
actually offer meanings: “An active life
serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity to realize the values in
creative work, while a passive life of enjoyment affords him the opportunity to
obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art, or nature. But there is also
purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and
which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s
attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. A
creative life and a life of enjoyment are banned to him. But not only
creativeness and enjoyment are meaningful. If there is meaning in life at all,
then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of
life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be
complete.” How can suffering be meaningless if it is so intricately bound
to life itself? We all can choose that which we wish to “designate meaningful.” Suffering can be meaningful if we want it to
be…
There is a lot to learn
from Man’s Search for Meaning, not
just five (5) lessons. Get this book and savor it in your heart and mind.
Love!
THINK BIG.
START SMALL. GO DEEP.
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