“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except
one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You
cannot control everything that happens to you in life, but you can always
control what you feel and what you do about what happens to you.”
Introduction
The above quote taken from the book is one that forces you
to consider the fact that unpleasant things are bound to happen in the course
of one’s life…and while it’s okay that we pray for grace to abound and for
nothing to go wrong, more often than not…things do go terribly wrong. Be it in
the form of financial struggles, ill health, work crisis, heartbreak, betrayal,
abuse or even the death of a loved one.
Now when things do go wrong, what do we do about it? And how
quickly are we able to bounce back? Or better still…how able are we to
use that wrong situation to an advantage?
Do we curl up and
wait to die? Or do we find hope in that situation despite our suffering?
Are we able to look at such dire situations and ask if there
is a lesson in there for us? but even further, fathom how that suffering can be
transformed into something beneficial for us and for others.
Tough question I think, but something we all should aspire
to.
Let me at this point say that this book was written by a camp
survivor from the notorious era of the 2nd world war, where all
kinds of horrors took place in the German (Nazi) concentration camps. (Remember
the movie “Escape from Sobibor”). Yeah, that magnitude of suffering.
It is such an amazing
twist but also a plus to this story, that the Author in question who was a
Doctor and a Psychiatrist had to go through such hideous conditions himself,
thereby having firsthand experience to validate his theories. Why do I say this?
Often psychologist get specimen which they use in a ‘laboratory set up’ to draw
their conclusions. But in this case the author along with other concentration
camp inmates were the specimen under observation.
Background and
important insights…
I will try to paint a small picture of the author’s
experience Before, During and After his stay in the camp. This is to ensure you
have some history, before going into the main take outs from the book. I find that
this is the best way to really gain context on the learnings here shared.
VICTOR FRANKL
At the age of 3 knew what he wanted to become in life -
“A physician”… and even as a youth frequently wondered about the meaning of
life. He would personalise it by asking himself; what the meaning of the coming
day was to the society, plus the coming days meaning for him as an individual.
This he said helped him to anticipate the new day and
prepare for it accordingly.
He began to study philosophy at the age of 16 by attending
adult classes, and during one such class he was asked to give a lecture on the
meaning of life. He said “It is we that must answer the questions
that life asks of us daily, and to these questions we can respond only by being
our authentic selves and by being responsible for our existence. Our answers
must consist not of talk and meditation, but of right conduct and actions, we
must take the responsibility to find the right answers to life’s problems and
fulfill the tasks which it sets for us constantly” This belief became
the cornerstone of both his personal and professional identity.
Victor founded Vienna’s 1st youth counselling
programme for difficult young adults, and worked in the suicidal ward of a clinic at the
university where he sought to help his patients find life meaningful even in
the face of depression and mental illness. At the age of 30, he was heading the
department of Neurology in the hospital where he worked. So, he was a successful young
man, by all accounts whose success was founded on helping others get better.
At the time the war broke out and was raging fiercely in Europe,
he obtained an American visa which would have enabled him escape all the
horrors from the war, and move to a life of comfort and affluence, as a
renowned professional in his field. However, he chose to stay back in his war
torn country to protect his parents who had no other means of escape. And so…the
war eventually caught up with him and his family, landing them all in the concentration
camps.
Besides the many horrors of the camp and constant threats to
his life, he found a way to stay hopeful and to give hope to others who were in
the camp with him. And at the end of the war, when he found out that he was the
only survivor from his family (he lost his parents & his pregnant wife), he
was able to overcome his grief and become a counselor to many who had suffered
a similar fate as his.
The big question is...how did he find the strength in the
midst of all that pain and suffering to become a beacon of light and a source
of hope to others.
I will outline in the quotes below, the more critical
philosophies which he held, that not only saw him through the ordeal, but made
him an even better & stronger person than he was before his ordeal in the
camp. These principles he learned by experiencing and not just by textbook and
analysis.
12 Quotes from Mans Search for meaning + my take on them.
1. Life
is not primarily a quest for Comfort, Pleasure or Power… rather it is a quest
for meaning! Which once found, fosters the individual’s ability to
survive and transcend whatever situation one finds the self in.
2. There
are 3 possible sources for finding meaning, these sources are…
o
Work
- Creating something valuable or doing a significant deed (accomplishment)
o
Love
- Experiencing something profound or encountering/caring for a person you love (Love
here is explained as the ability to love the total human being, plus the
ability to recognise the essential traits of this being and help them in actualizing
it. Love here could also be for a cause
rather than a person)
o
Courage
- The attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering (The ability to transform
tragedy into triumph, and to turn a predicament into achievement)
3. A
depressed soul can be cured by leading it to again find meaning in life. There
is an ultimate purpose to any life here on earth, therefore life remains
meaningful despite circumstances. Try to find that meaning. The book
suggests that a helpful way to try to regain meaning is to imagine yourself at
old age, looking back at all the things you enjoyed accomplishing with your life
that made it meaningful. Are they significant things or are they minimal and
disappointing?
4. Don’t
aim at success, the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are
going to miss it. For success like happiness must ensue (i.e be an outcome), as
the unintended side effect of ones dedication to a cause greater than the self, or
as a by-product of ones surrender to a person other than himself.
5. The
truth as proclaimed by so many poets, thinkers and prophets is that LOVE is the
ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. I’ve read somewhere
that LOVE alone has the potential to heal the world and restore it back to
Eden. I guess that is why even in
the bible it is said “but the greatest of these is Love”. We are to constantly find
ways to create and give that love in the world for the benefit of one or of
all.
6. Everything
can be taken from a man, but one thing - The last of the human’s freedom, which
is the ability to choose ones attitude in any given set of circumstances, to
choose one’s own way. i.e Mans own attitude to his existence. Be it positive or negative.
7. He
who has a WHY to live for, can bear almost any HOW! Emotion which is rooted in
suffering, ceases to be suffering the moment we form a clear and precise
picture of the meaning, reason and value behind that situation. I found
it very profound to read that in the camp when inmates attempted suicide due to
the fact that they had lost hope, the most effective way of getting them back
was helping them define a future goal, for which everything they were going
through was going to serve as assets to. It was a way of getting them to
understand that life still expected something of them in the future.
For the
author – one such goal was for him to imagine the various lectures and classes
he was going to give after the war, on the psychology of inmates in the
concentration camp.
For one inmate (a scientist), it was a series of books he
had started writing based on his unique knowledge but was yet to complete,
and
for another (a father), it was a child whom he adored and was waiting for him
in another country.
A man who is conscious of the responsibility he bears towards his work,
another human being or a cause will never be able to carelessly throw his life
away or fritter away time.
8. No
one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.
9. Freedom
is in danger of degenerating the society, unless it is lived in terms of
responsibleness. In this age of “freedom of everything”, responsibility
towards channeling that freedom correctly is highly required. That is why the statue of liberty on the east coast, should be supported by a statue of responsibility on the west coast.
10. There
is a mass neurosis which plagues this present time, it is the state of “existential
vacuum” which manifests itself mainly in a state of BOREDOM, and from that
boredom arise many extremes. Fill your days with meaning, lest you become a zombie trapped in the existential vacuum.
11. We
should therefore not be hesitant about challenging man with a potential meaning
for him to fulfill, for at any given point in one’s life there is; what one has
already achieved & what one still ought to accomplish. Therein lies THE GAP BETWEEN WHAT ONE IS, AND WHAT ONE SHOULD BECOME. And In
that gap lies many meanings waiting to be realised and fulfilled. Are you even aware of your own gaps???
Love this one!
FINALLY…….
12. WHAT MAN ACTUALLY NEEDS IS NOT A TENSIONLESS STATE, BUT RATHER THE STRUGGLING AND STRIVING FOR A WORTHWHILE GOAL, A FREELY CHOSEN TASK! What he needs is not
the discharge of tension at any cost but… the call of a potential meaning,
waiting to be fulfilled by him.
Love this even more!
There is a meaning, a purpose, waiting to be fulfilled by You! Embrace the call with open arms and be on the look out to fill your life up with meaning.
I hope this was useful, cheers to open minds!
