Finding Meaning in Life: Reflections on Victor Frankl's Philosophy
What it means to live a meaningful life, even in the midst of great suffering? That is the major question that was answered and shared by Victor Frankl through his book and that has been revealed in meaning of life reflection essay. As I read his book I realized many things. Like how lucky I am that I didn't faced the gravity of suffering that Frankl experienced. Another realization is that whatever circumstances we faced, still we can create meaning in our lives and also share our unique gifts with the world. Through him and his book, I can explore and know of what makes my life meaningful. Also, I now have the opportunity to reflect on what has been meaningful in my life and on what might have the greatest potential for me to create a meaningful life.
Personally, I really enjoyed this book because it was just fascinating yet gloom how people were put through such a horrible place and endured an amount of pain, but people like Viktor Frankl use a method of psychology, and it helped him through it all instead of ending his life, when he envisioned a life for him, he had meanings of his own to keep him moving forward such as his wife 'I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look was then more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise' and 'My mind still clung to the image of my wife'. It doesn't matter if it's real or fake if it helps you get through then it helps. He had to keep his hopes up even when he is facing the worst situations possible. He fought through the hardship of being at a place that was hell on earth but still had light at the end of his tunnel which made him want to keep moving forward. Frankl who was suffering chose to embrace it and to become a better person out of it. That shows me that it is possible to get out of a situation, you just need to have hope and meaning in life where you want to choose your path. The people who were not capable of living didn't envision something for them, possibly didn't have a family to help guide them or no meaning in life on why they wanted to live. Given Victor Frankl's situation, being in a concentration camp and seeing his whole family die in the camps, I found that his way of thinking was very interesting but also very abnormal. In bad situations most people are probably not even capable of setting their mind to think in the way Frankl did. The way Frankl was able to identify himself like this is one of the most difficult things a person can accomplish, especially in a life or death situation. In the story of his experience in the concentration camps, you see a powerful overview of his point of view of freedom. All his political and social freedoms were taken away, yet he was able to stay sane enough to embrace his psychological freedom. From personal experience and observations. Dr. Frankl, as I mentioned earlier, argued that the meaning of life is a key motivator to our survival. While it differs for each individual, finding meaning is important to each individual. One may argue that the current era of information overload, with many of us spending long hours alone and isolated on our iPhone, laptop and iPad islands, faced with multiple pressures to be efficient and productive, makes it easy for us to disconnect from each other and walk around silently with accumulated stressors too often even unaware of it. In such circumstances, holding on to one's own meaning or reclaiming it can be challenging to say the least.
In his book “Man's Search for Meaning” Viktor Frankl explores what it means to live a meaningful life, even in the midst of great suffering. I hope we all can play a part in building a culture that will empower every individual to find her or his meaning in life and offer help during those dark moments in which we all may find ourselves at some point. Together, as a community of connected family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors we can make our society kinder and stronger. The core of his message in my opinion is this: Live for other people, you greatly enrich your life by being supportive and helpful to other people. When you become selfless and you take joy in other's successes, your life exponentially improves. A man can only find hisher meaning through self-transcendence. Only when we are not only living for ourselves can we bring more true happiness into our lives.
