Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Man’s Search for Meaning is a memoir by Viktor Frankl, a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps. In this masterpiece, Viktor teaches us how we can endure suffering, find meaning in it, and define our own future.
Viktor’s philosophy for life is defined by the following statement: “primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful”.
In order to become successful, happy and fulfilled in life, you must learn to endure suffering, and there is no better man to teach you than Viktor Frankl.
You should by all means read this book for yourself. Below, I have written out my book notes, but I couldn’t cover hundreds of pages in just a couple of bullet points. That is why I highly encourage you to create your notes whilst going through the book, and for the time being use mine as a guide on what this book is about.
For more books check out Best Self-Improvement Books or Best Classic Books, and for a full self-improvement guide, you can also take a look at my Roadmap to Overman.
Book Notes
- Nietzche: “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.”
- Last of human freedoms is the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.
- Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. It will come as an unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.
Part one
- At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.
- Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
- You should have trust and let your faith play out. Don’t be afraid of your faith.
- Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
- Dostoevski said once: “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.”
- A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life.
- “What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you”.
Part two
- Three ways of finding meaning in life:
- By creating a work or doing a deed
- By experiencing something or encountering someone
- By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering – suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment if finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice (For example, having your loved one die. Your suffering has meaning because it spares your loved one from having suffered the same pain if you were the one who died first.)
- Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or avoid pain, but rather to see a meaning in his life.
- Pleasure is, and must remain a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.
- Three ways of finding meaning in life: