I’m ending 2023’s Takeaway Tuesdays with a couple of amazing philosophical books which have deeply impacted my outlook and how I approach life in general. These have both helped my career development as well as I’m able to bring more of my true self to my work now.
The one I’ll cover first is Man’s Search For Meaning by Viktor Frankl, first published in 1959. Yes, 1959 was the year it came out and it’s been on the must-read lists for mindset, philosophy and psychology ever since. It truly is a classic.
The second one will be The Art Of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Mr. Frankl was a psychiatrist in Austria when WWII began. He and his family were sent to concentration camps. The first part of the book is about his concentration camp experience. He especially draws upon how those fellow prisoners who gave up hope seemed to be the ones who were more likely to succumb to the horrors. Those who drew upon hope and a future goal or vision were the ones who were more likely to persevere despite the devastation.
The second section of the book is how he turned that experience and his observations into his field of study, which then became his life’s work. It offers a high-level look at how he developed his work, what he calls ‘logotherapy’, and how it can be put into practice.
The impact of his work altered the field of psychiatry so much that he is now included with Freud and Adler in the schools of Viennese Psychotherapy. Freud’s school was based on life being a quest for pleasure. Adler proposed power as life’s goal. Frankl proposed life as a search for meaning.
Frankl does have a fairly academic or formal style of writing, so it is different than modern, conversational self-development books. But it’s so worth it.
My top takeaway from Man’s Search For Meaning is found in this passage on page 72
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves, and furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men that 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 answers to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.
Or as he puts it in another passage describing how he would counsel fellow prisoners who were contemplating suicide: it was a question of getting them to realize life was still expecting something from them: something in the future was expected.
That message specifically is the one I recall when someone else mentions this book. I remember it as if we’re still here, then life has something still in store for us. It’s up to us to discover it.
So as we go about our daily lives, we can answer life’s meaning by doing the best we can in any given moment, showing life that we are fulfilling the tasks put before us.
This insight took a lot of pressure off of my own quest to discover some grand plan to life. I was so worried that I was missing the point, that I didn’t see a plan, that I was fulfilling my reason for being. Frankl’s approach provided something I could put into everyday living without feeling like I had to find some secret special formula. All I needed to do was to show up fully in my daily life and be curious about what was set before me. How did I want to ‘answer’ to these situations, these tasks I was facing? How could I bring my best self and learn from the experience?
This truly has been a book that’s deeply impacted me and my approach to life. I’d love to hear what your top takeaways are from Man’s Search For Meaning.
