The Search For Meaning According To Viktor Frankl

Many times we become so focused on changing our circumstances that we forget the enormous power we have to enjoy the present no matter what . One of the greatest exponents of this idea was the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl.

From the account of his experiences in a concentration camp, this author explains in his book Man in search of meaning the experience that led him to create logotherapy, a psychotherapy from which the will to meaning is proposed as the primary motivation of the human being. Viktor Frankl, a prisoner for a long time, felt in his own being the meaning of a naked existence.

Now, how could he accept that life was worth living? A man who had lost everything, who had seen everything worthwhile destroyed, who suffered from hunger, cold, endless brutality, and who so many times was on the verge of extermination. And yet Frankl managed to find the meaning of his existence.

According to this psychiatrist, the search for the meaning of life is the essence of it. In the realization of this sense, man aspires to meet another human being in the form of a you and love him.

When the sense of existence is frustrated, the desire for power or pleasure occupies the most important place in motivating behavior. In this way, the search for happiness becomes an end in itself and therefore frustration arises.

How can we transform our existence?

Happiness is obtained as a consequence of having a goal, and not by the direct pursuit of it. The door to happiness opens outwards, and whoever tries to tear it down is locked.

Optimism is a key part of Frankl’s conception. In his philosophy, life appears as an opportunity that must be responded to; it is necessary to look for the best option to conserve it and therefore keep the promise of survival. In this sense, once the for what has been defined, the accent goes to the hows.

Love is the highest goal to which human beings can aspire. This fundamental faith allows you to recover all the efforts, decisions or actions that someone has made in their life. The fundamental thing for Frankl is what the man answers to the questions that life asks him, and not what the person asks him. Happiness is the result of having a meaning.

In this commitment, values ​​play a fundamental role. Especially important are those of attitude, creation and experience, being especially remarkable in the latter case the love experience.

Values ​​make an inner journey possible from which arises, on the one hand, faith in the future, and on the other, the search for resources of love and meaning in one’s personal life history.

The relationship between inner strength (values, faith, love, meaning) and future goal, is the link that integrates the individual and allows him to recognize himself as a unique and unrepeatable being.

What is the inner attitude?

Inner attitude to circumstances is the result of personal choice. It is the freedom to become the kind of person you want to be. Being beyond material or physical limitations is a human possibility where man knows the experience of heroism.

In order for people to develop the best inner attitude possible, Frankl spoke of a number of fundamental teachings. The nine most important are the following:

• Choose to have hope. We cannot always change circumstances, but we can always choose our attitude in whatever situation arises. When we can no longer change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves
• Know your for qu é . Ask yourself: What am I living for? Every day we should get up and ask ourselves why we got up and why we are here. “Those who have a ‘why’ can tolerate almost any ‘how’.

• Learn to cry. Tears are not a sign of weakness, they emanate from a soul that is not afraid of breaking. “There is no need to be ashamed of tears, because they testify that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”
• Don’t settle for being part of the herd. The world is upside down. Sometimes doing what everyone does is crazy. “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal.”
• Live with meaning. We give meaning to life by answering the questions it asks us. Life presents each person with a challenge and the person can only respond with their own action. What one expects of its existence does not matter; what matters is what is expected of you.
• Fill your day with acts of kindness. Kindness has a goal, the hundreds of small altruistic acts that we have the opportunity to do each day help to fill our lives with meaning.

• Go beyond yourself. We find true meaning when we transcend our own limits and needs. The more a person forgets himself, when giving himself to a cause or to another person, the more human he is and the more he grows.
• Feel the pain of others. Suffering is painful, no matter how irrelevant the problem may seem to others. Have empathy for the pain of others, even if it is not a tragedy in the global perspective of life.
• We can change even when life is difficult. We can create a meaningful life full of meaning, love and purpose.