Man's Search for Meaning Summary
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| man's search for meaning summary |
"Man's search for meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl is a collection of those things that make life worth living in the face of suffering and hardships. In this book, Frankl has narrated his experience of living in a concentration camp during World war II. Not only his experience, but he also described the drastic conditions in which the prisoners in a concentration camp are kept. The way prisoners are bound to survive and work just to be fed on scraps of food not enough to make up for a one-time meal. Not only the food but the other basic necessities of life are provided to such a limited extent that it becomes a competition to survive. In those conditions, only a few people can find the meaning of their lives and gave a purpose to their sufferings.
Keeping in mind his days in a
concentration camp, Frankl has described life in general as the survival of
fittest. Not only physically, but mentally and spiritually too. He has conveyed
a point that no man can survive the bare minimum hardships of this world if he
doesn't have a cause to live his life and fight for it. The meaning of life
varies from person to person; for some people living life by helping others
gives meaning to their lives while to some people the meaning of life lies in
the achievement of their goals and moving towards a better life.
My thoughts about “Man's search for meaning”
man's search for meaning
What I can say is that this book is full of small lessons that are surely going to make you stop and think. But keep in mind, you're not going to find a "specific meaning" of life since Viktor Frankl himself has narrated in the book that every individual has a different meaning of life based on what they give priority to.
It is a slow read but a good one!
There was a part in the book where Viktor Frankl narrated the story of one of his clients who was about to commit suicide in the middle of the night and gave him a call to say good bye. Frankl talked to her the whole night and changed her decision to commit suicide. When he met her and asked the reason for the change in her decision. She told that she wanted someone to listen to what she has to say, when Frankl listened to her throughout that night she hadn’t left any negative thoughts in her mind. So Frankl has conveyed this point for depressed and suicidal people that sometimes the only thing they want from us is to listen to them. If we make sure that they are properly listened to, they never think of committing suicide. And I totally stan this!
Quotes from the book
man's search for meaning quotes
Sharing some quotes from the book
"The attempt to develop a
sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick
learned while mastering the art of living"
I really liked this one!
“To live is to suffer, to survive
is to find meaning in the suffering”
“Don’t aim at success; the more
you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it”
“The war gave us the war of
nerves”
“Yes, a man can get used to
anything, but do not ask us how”
“It is not the physical pain
which hurts the most; it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the
unreasonableness of it all”
Isn’t this true to another level?
“No man should judge unless he
asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have
done the same”
“Life is like being at the
dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come. And yet it is over
already”
“No one has the right to do
wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them”
“How can we dare to predict the
behavior of man?”
“Some behave like swine while
others behave like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which
one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions”
“Optimism is not anything to be
commanded or ordered. One cannot even force oneself to be optimistic
indiscriminately; against all odds, against all hope”
“Happiness cannot be pursued; it
must ensue. One must have a reason to ‘be happy’”
I think this is a really
important thing to be understood by all of us. We live in a society where we just
say to depressed people that you must feel happy. We cannot say someone to be
happy and they will start feeling that way. They must have a reason.
“People have enough to live by
but nothing to live for; they have the means but not no meaning”
“Live as if you were living for
the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act
now”
“It is true that the old have no
opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that.
They have realities in the past; the potentialities they have actualized, the
meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized. And nothing and
nobody can ever remove these assets from the past”
Hope you enjoyed the review :)
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