Viktor Frankl's 3 Sources of Meaning

Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man's Search For Meaning’ is easily the book that has had the greatest impact on my life.

It’s an account of Frankl’s time spent in four Nazi concentration camps between 1942 and 1945.

Despite the book’s bleak subject matter, it is full of hope, insight and even humour.

Against the darkest depictions of the worst parts of human nature, examples abound of the very best aspects too.

“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”

Nietzsche said that, but never has his aphorism been put more rigorously to the test than in places like Auschwitz and Dachau.

The idea is this - our capacity to deal with the bullshit that life will inevitably throw our way is determined by the amount of meaning we have in our lives.

Frankl noticed in the prisoners who survived the camps that their 'why to live' was derived from one of three places:

1. Purposeful work and deeds

Meaning abounds in work which gives you something that you’re prepared to focus single-mindedly on. Something that you believe to be of value to at least one other person.

2. Love

We can derive meaning from both romantic and non-romantic instances of love. It emerges from the love we have for our family and our friends. These relationships are sources of profound meaning in our lives because our goals are intertwined with theirs. We feel a sense of responsibility for their success.

3. Our attitude towards suffering

The prisoners who found in themselves a reason to live despite their conditions did so because they were able to see their suffering as something over which they could triumph.

In viewing suffering like this - as an opportunity to display and develop character - prisoners were able to deriver a sense of meaning in spite of their suffering.

Pick up Man's Search For Meaning - you won't regret it!