Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl notes

Not a meta-analysis of the book as a whole, but these are some of the most powerful passages and stories that stand out in my mind.

“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 dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender 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 do to 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 of of it.”

“Man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little.”

“Death in Tehran: A rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants. The servant cried that he had just encountered Death, who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him the fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Tehran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse. On returning to the house the master himself met Death, and questioned him, “Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?” “I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Tehran,” said Death.

“I often talk to this tree,” she said to me. I was startled and didn’t quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. “Yes.” What did it say to her? She answered, “It said to me, ‘I am here- I am here- I am life, eternal life.’”

Lack of meaning, or “existential vacuum,” can lead to looking for compensation is other things: desire for power, desire for money, desire for sex.

The meaning of life is different for all humans. The only constant is the responsibility to seize your unique opportunity.

“What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is only possible as a side-effect of self-transcendence.”

“To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.

Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.

“Personal choices, activities, relationships, hobbies and even simple pleasures can also give meaning to life. Why, then, do some people find themselves feeling so empty? Frankl’s wisdom here is worth emphasizing: it is a question of the attitude one takes toward life’s challenges and opportunities, both large and small. A positive attitude enables a person to endure suffering and disappointment as well as enhance enjoyment and satisfaction. A negative attitude intensifies pain and deepens disappointments; it undermines and finishes pleasure, happiness and satisfaction; it may even lead to depression or physical illness.

People are looking for meaning and when they can’t find it, they become lost.