Man's search for Meaning

6 Pages 1540 Words

Man’s Search for Meaning is a relatively short but powerful novel about an experience through a concentration camp from the eyes of psychologist and author, Victor E. Frankl. In this novel, he illustrates the relevance of psychology through his experience at a concentration camp during World War II. With psychology interwoven through the passages of his novel, he makes a clear picture of the minds of the prisoners, what they, the prisoners, including himself, suffered through and how they survived. During this novel, he states that, “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” (pg. 85).
In this quote, Frankl is explaining that people should not seek what they want from life but, on the other hand, endeavor to find the goal that life has in store for them. By seeking the meaning of life, we overlook what life desires from us. Instead of searching for the meaning of life, we should be awaiting the questions that life has for us in order to fulfill it’s design for us. The point of life is not the answers that we seek from life to find meaning, it is the questions from life that we ourselves must answer to uncover that meaning, every hour of the day and every day of our lives. It is the responsibility of the ones that understand this meaning to teach the “despairing men” that do not understand. We must take their attitudes, their wrong perceptions of how to seek the meaning of life, and change that so they may find the truth, that life dictates what questions we answer, that we do not ask the questions of life.
I agree with Frankl’s statement because I understand wha...