By Muhammad Muzzammil Bashir
Think of a moment when you once found yourself in a situation where you were either physically, spiritually, or emotionally stressed, or both, where you could not help but give in and submit to your predicament, and all of a sudden, a flash of thought crossed your mind of the consequences of your choices, inspiring you to become decisive in your fate and bear with the situation while looking forward to its end until you are free from it.
The book, Man’s Search for Meaning, is the story of a psychiatrist, Victor E. Frankl, and his life at the Nazi concentration camp, envisioning and inspiring his colleagues to find meaning for life ahead while enduring the horrendous experiences of the camp.
The book accounts his experiences together with those of his colleagues’ lives at the camp, the sacrifices, the crucifixion, and the deaths of the great army of unknown and unrecorded victims, and of course, those who gave up on life and hope for a future; thus, they died less of lack of medicine or food than of lack of finding meaning or purpose to live for.
Frankl likened the experiences to assert that while we cannot avoid suffering, we can choose to learn how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move our lives towards a renewed purpose.
The author asserts that life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, wealth, or power but rather a quest to find meaning in one’s life. He coined his ideas in theory called “logotherapy,” meaning that striving to find meaning in one’s life is the primary motivational force. The force usually comes from three possible sources: work, love, and in courage during difficult times.
A purpose-driven life is one that is enveloped in finding meaning that the mind holds subconsciously to pursue no matter the circumstances one is in. Obstacles may delay I but cannot deter that mind from pursuing its course. Fankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is a masterpiece in this field, written in simple terms to comprehend its message easily.
Muhammad Muzzammil Bashir can be contacted via mbashir199@yahoo.com.
This is a good piece, and well-driven points about the book.