Man’s Search for Meaning
Viktor Frankl retells his experience of surviving in a World War II concentration camp. The book dives into Frankl’s horrific prisoner experience at Auschwitz, Dachau and other camps, where he explores the meaning in life. This leads to a section surrounding logotherapy, a form of psychotherapy that Frankl created after his experiences in the camp.
“He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.”
Top 3 Lessons from book:
You always have a choice.
Showing emotion is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of courage.
Time is relative.
Lesson 1: You always have a choice.
Frankl denotes many different scenes of the inmates, such as going on trucks that supposedly went to camps, choosing to give away their food, or hanging themselves due to the conditions of the camp. The prisoners were stripped of everything both physically and environmentally; however, they still always had a choice of freedom in the actions they chose with the opportunities they were given:
They may have been few in numbers, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way
One example described in the book is where Frankl had the opportunity to wake someone who was having a bad nightmare, but he chose not to as no nightmare could be worse than the world they were living in now:
That moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him
Lesson 2: Showing suffering is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of courage
Frankl talks about how emotions are the attributes that lead us to suffer. Emotions are the analysis and thought processes that our bodies use to react to events. However, when we are not able to understand and have an idea of what led to these emotions, they can be overpowering, as mentioned:
Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
When we are unsure of what to do with these emotions and we show them, it is courage to let those tears fall and not to hold them in.
Lesson 3: Time is relative
Frankl describes how when people are in difficult external situations, they have the opportunity to experience immense growth. When in the concentration camp, Frankl and his comrades described the following:
My comrades agreed when I said that in camp a day lasted longer than a week. How paradoxical was our time-experience!
To others not in the camp, one day of the same repetitive tasks would not feel as impactful, since it feels like any other day. With those in the camp, though, these days were a battle of having to stay present and making every moment count to make the day feel longer than a week.
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