3 things I learnt from the book - Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Findings of an Austrian psychologist in the Auschwitz concentration camp
I first picked up this book 2 years ago on the recommendation of Dr. Jordan Peterson in one of his Youtube videos.
Thus, I knew it had to have something substantial. What I found from ‘Man’s search for meaning’ was beyond substantial. It changed my life.
This newsletter is about the 3 things I learnt from one of the books I would recommend everybody read not once but thrice in their lifetime:
“What is the meaning of life? The purpose of life?”
It is one of the most naive and widely pondered upon queries in the human kind.
One that I am slightly annoyed by every time it gets asked on my Sunday QnAs :p
But then quickly regrounded by the realization that I myself have upon several occasions asked the very same question until I read this illuminating paragraph for once and for all.
“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
How is this significant to your life?
Consider life as a series of tasks that is presented to you, because believe it or not this world requires your input to operate in whatever capacity, however big or small.
Your job as a mortal human blessed with consciousness is to fulfill the task presented to you by life.
There are 3 ways as Frankl describes to approach any given task set by life: -
One, is to take the appropriate action and DO something about it.
Second is to contemplate and think about the lessons from the task.
Third is if you cannot do either, bear the consequences of your actions as a cross on your back. Nobly and with a spine.
“In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
Imagine that bad experience to be a cage. It’s got you trapped inside it. You are clawing at the bars wanting to break free and you just… can’t.
But if you understand how the cage was built piece by piece, the make of the cage; you can now dismantle the cage piece by piece. You can now free yourself.
Our mental cages built out of past experiences and trauma are somewhat similar.
The ones that torment us the most and the longest are the ones whose make we have not understood.
What do I mean by make? Think of the make as the story you tell yourself. The concept of what happened.
If someone betrayed you, and it left you feeling fragmented and like you can’t trust anyone anymore; understanding the incident’s make would look like a series of questions like this.
They betrayed me…what made me so vulnerable to exploitation?…was it my own naivette?… can I trust anyone anymore at all?… why did they betray me?.. were they out to actively get me?.. or were they a victim of their own past?… how would I behave if I was in their shoes? … if I had their life and their past?… can I exercise more care before I let my guards down in the future? … and so on
The questioning can be in-depth until you find a set of answers that satisfy you. I highly recommend writing in a journal instead of doing mental gymnastics.
And thus once you get your story straight about what happened, why it happened and what to do about it next (similar to my MIS Repair method - click to watch) you can put it to rest, grieve the loss of your past self, and move on with your life with the lessons.
A 2.0 version of yourself.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
This quote blew my mind.
Not in a way that “lord, I have never heard something so unique” rather in a way where you tell yourself - “this is exactly what I knew in my body but didn’t have the right choice or sequence of words strung together to highlight the idea, and thus AHA!”
This space that Viktor Frankl is talking about is the space where you hold yourself by the scruff of your neck right after you are provoked.
When you are tempted to let your demons take over. This space, if used appropriately will allow you to calculate your response carefully not carelessly.
The kind of meticulous response which if gone favorably or unfavorably you would be comfortable accepting the consequences of.
WHY you ask? Because it is a response made in self-awareness and calculated meaning, not in reactive haste.
If you asked me to recommend only 1 book to read in your life It woudln’t even take me a heartbeat to urge you to get a copy of ‘man’s search for meaning’ for yourself!
Go ahead and be transformed :)
Yours,
Ipsita
Reading the first point made me feel relieved. I am thankful for your insight.
Very beautifully explained 💖