MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING

By Lori Carmody

The classic best seller, Man’s Search For Meaning by author-psychiatrist Viktor E Frankl, speaks of the meaning of life through his experiences of being in the Nazi concentration camps (Dachau and Auschwitz) for three years and his private logotherapy practice following World War II. 

Frankl asserts that we discover our meaning in life in three unique ways:

1. By creating a work or doing a deed of achievement or accomplishment
2.  By experiencing a goodness, truth or beauty in nature and/or culture or by deeply loving someone
3. By the attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering in so far as transforming our unavoidable suffering into something that has meaning for ourselves, someone else or for the world

This book is so powerful that, rather than writing my own synopsis of the greater points, I would prefer to give you several quotes from the book in hopes that they will whet your thirst to pick up the book and read it yourselves.

• Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire.  (pg 49)
• He who has a “why” to live can bear with almost any “how”.  (pgs 9, 84, 109) (Written with moving examples from the death camps)
• There are two races of men in the world but only these two – the “race” of the decent man and the “race” of the indecent man.  Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society.  (pg 94)
• Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.  That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.  (pg 134)
• If one cannot change the situation that causes suffering, he can still change his attitude. (pg 148)  (Written with examples from his logotherapy practice treating depression, suffering of all types and guilt)
• Public opinion pollsters recently reported that those held in highest esteem by most of the people interviewed are neither the great artists nor the great scientist, neither the great statesmen nor the great sports figures but those who master a hard lot with their heads held high.  (pg 149)
• So, let us be alert – alert in a twofold sense.  Since Auschwitz, we know what man is capable of.  And since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake.  (pg 154)

Originally written in 1959, these words continue to speak today.

Thanks for reading.

Lori

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