Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning
Author: Viktor E. Frankl
Subject: biography
My rating: 5*



About the book:
This book makes me believe in the power of the words, and makes me realize once again why I love reading so much. It should be read by everyone who ever had doubts about why live and how to do it better. This book is a gift to the reader, brought by the unbelievable experience of the author. Just like the neuroscientist who had a stroke and wrote a book about her experience ("My stroke of insight", see review below), Frankl, one of the greatest psychotherapist of this century, survived 4 different concentration camps and lived to write about his experience on dying, why not dying and why live. At the core of his theory of logotherapy is the belief that humans' primarily motivational force is the search of meaning. His living experience and working with numerous suicidal patients has been a constant source for his therapy practice. "Man's Search for Meaning" has sold approximately nine million copies worldwide and been translated into twenty-three languages. The Library of Congress called the book one of the ten most influential books of the twentieth century. All I can say is...read it!

From the book:
According to logotherapy, meaning can be discovered by three ways: "(1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."

"There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life."

"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, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run - in the long-run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it."

"I had wanted simply to convey to the reader by way of concrete example that life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones. And I thought that if the point were demonstrated in a situation as extreme as that in a concentration camp, my book might gain a hearing. I therefore felt responsible for writing down what I had gone through, for I thought it might be helpful to people who are prone to despair."