Key ideas
"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."
~ Viktor Frankl
- Viktor Frankl’s work, Man’s Search for Meaning teaches us that people can survive even the most horrific of circumstances. Often this has less to do with physical strength, and more to do with our mindset.
- Our capacity to find meaning – some purpose to our life beyond mere survival – can give us tremendous power and resilience.
- There is no “best way” to find meaning, any more than there is a “best move” in chess. The best move depends entirely on the situation. We find meaning by responding to the challenges that life throws at us — and seeking solutions to these problems.
- Frankl suggests three ways to find meaning in our lives and thus to live well. The first is by creating a work or doing a deed. The second is in the experience of love. And the third is in the attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering – our capacity to find some purpose even in our darkest time can fuel us to get through those times.
Transcript
This episode is the fourth in a series on resilience. The previous episodes explored insights from ancient history. This time we're going to jump nearly 2000 years to the recent past. For me, there are few books I've read that capture the idea of resilience better than Viktor Frankl's autobiographical book, Man's Search for Meaning. Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist, spent several years in various Nazi concentration camps. How does one survive an ordeal like that? Frankl describes what life was like in painful detail — in essence, a prison sentence with no fixed release in a nightmare prison. Even the physically strongest of prisoners often did not survive.
Instead, Frankl observed, those who survived were the ones who found some meaning to their existence, some higher purpose beyond mere survival. As he describes in the book, "it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us." His book and subsequent work for the rest of his life were devoted to this idea. He goes on to say, "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."
Before diving much deeper into this story, I admit that I had some hesitation in producing an episode on Frankl's work. On the one hand, I've found his insights to be compelling and inspiring in my own life as I've sought to live a life guided by purpose. But then, on the other hand, I've never faced anything that even slightly resembles this kind of adversity myself, so I can't personally speak to how to overcome it. I don't want to talk lightly about the types of adversity that Frankl describes. I don't want to imply there's an easy answer to some of the most horrific forms of suffering people face.
Nonetheless, despite this hesitation, I feel that there is tremendous value in Frankl's insights, not just for this theme of resilience, but even more generally for living a life of flourishing. And so, this seems worth exploring. Just one final disclaimer that just because something works for one person doesn't mean it works for everyone. Like all philosophies and practices, we can try things out, and if this works for you, that's fantastic.
With that concern voiced, let's explore Frankl's story and the lessons he shares. Perhaps you might find some of this valuable.
Viktor Frankl was one of the millions of Jews that were sent to Nazi concentration camps. In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, he chronicles this horrific chapter in human history, sharing personal anecdotes of the atrocities committed in the camps. As Frankl described it, the hopelessness of a prison sentence with no end sapped the will of even the strongest people. And like many others, he lost his entire family to the camps.
And yet, despite the horrors of the experience, Frankl manages to strike a tone of optimism.
His experience as a psychiatrist gave him a unique perspective. He began to observe how his fellow prisoners handled the experience. He saw that survival didn't often depend on physical strength. Instead, their mental state seemed to have a much greater impact on survival.
He observed that "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms—to choose one's own attitude in any given set of circumstances—to choose one's own way."
These acts of generosity, in turn, gave these prisoners a purpose. Which, in turn, gave them the will to live another day. Frankl describes this finding of meaning as the central force that drives us as humans.
How, then, do we find meaning? Is there an answer to this timeless, almost cliche question, "what is the meaning of life?"
Frankl describes the meaning of life as something that changes day by day, situation by situation. Asking this question, he says, "would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion: 'Tell me, what is the best move in the world?'" The "best" move depends entirely on the situation. We find meaning by responding to the challenges that life throws at us, seeking solutions to these problems.
Frankl's logotherapy sought to help practitioners and patients find ways to do just that. He placed a strong emphasis on what he calls responsibleness. We must take responsibility for the aspects we can control and do our best to be our best — for whatever the situation demands of us. As he describes, "Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!"
He suggests three ways to find meaning in our lives and thus to live well. The first is by creating a work or doing a deed. The second is in the experience of love. And the third is in the attitude we take towards unavoidable suffering.
Given the focus of this podcast on resilience, this third means is the most relevant. As we see through his description of the concentration camps, we know that humans can survive intense pain and deprivation. And in confronting this pain, refusing to be defined or confined by it, we transform ourselves.
Knowing what is possible for humans to overcome makes me think that you and I both are capable of far more than we believe. We're going to be hit by setbacks, failures, and all manner of unavoidable suffering. When it comes, can we adopt this same mindset? For whatever kinds of adversity we might face, can we use this to grow stronger? Can we find meaning and purpose that can guide and empower us?
Frankl shows us that we can. He writes: "We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation. For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."
When we consider the many challenges facing humanity now, the time is ripe for us to embrace this mindset. We are challenged to change ourselves to meet the complex problems in front of us. The world is arguably in much better but in other ways, much worse shape than 70+ years ago when Frankl wrote this book. On the final page, he concludes: "For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best."
Ok, that's all for now. I hope that these insights from Viktor Frankl help you to do your best! If you found this podcast interesting, be sure to subscribe to check out more episodes. And please share this with a friend if you think it would be helpful to someone. Until the next time, be well!
Podcast soundtrack credit:
Our Story Begins Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/