My rating: 3.5/5 stars

“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”

Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor E. Frankl

Victor E. Frankl was a neurologist, psychiatrist and a survivor of the holocaust. This book is not a full recounting of the suffering he endured while in the concentration camps but rather of the moments and the people who gave him the will to survive. 

There’s a huge emphasis throughout this book on “reaction, attitude, and acceptance” particularly in relation to “suffering”. Frankl talks about how ‘suffering’ is inevitable but how you choose to react to it/ learn from it is what makes the difference. He makes sure to emphasize that ‘suffering’ itself is not what makes a meaningful life, but what you learn from it and how you make peace with it is what adds to the meaning of your life. 

I guess if I could break it down in simpler terms:  Don’t think you have to suffer to find meaning in life. If we could remove suffering from lifes’ experiences then that would be great, that would be the ideal. But because we know for a fact that suffering (on all scales) is inevitable, the only thing you have power over is how you choose to react to it (when/if it occurs) and what you choose to take from it. 

Now, choosing to remain optimistic in the midst of such prolonged suffering is hard and Frankl tells stories of people in the concentration camps who died not solely as a result of starvation or disease but hugely in part because they lost all hope. He recounts times when he was close to losing hope himself and even times when he could possibly have escaped to freedom. 

Frankl’s entire research and approach to psychotherapy today is called “Logotherapy” which is defined as “the idea that human beings are most motivated by a search for meaning, indicating that the meaning of life is the biggest question on our minds and the biggest stressor on our psyches”.