Viktor Frankl was a psychologist who experienced years within a concentration camp.
This was my first book seeing the nightmare of concentration camps. Men would be stripped of their clothes, their hair shaved, their families taken away, their life work burned to the ground. What was built was now gone to start anew within a grim world of surrounding death. Suicide was entertained by everyone as an average of six deaths a day plagued the camp.
But somehow hope seemed to prevail to some. Emotions soon deadened because the peaks had withered away. Life was just there. No food, no water. Sickness lived everywhere and the cold winter bit. However, love prevailed. Love is the highest goal that man can aspire. And when people reach this state, they fantasize about the simplest of items – riding a bus, drinking juice, etc. Even while living in a concentration camp, humor helped get them through.
“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 way”
More prisoners died during Christmas than any other times. Prisoners were looking towards the date, rather than the reason. However, instead of looking for a date to survive. People need reason.
“He who has a why to live for can bear any how”
It’s not really what you expect out of life, but what life should expect out of you.
Logotherapy: man’s desire for a life that is as meaningful as possible. Find meaning. Everything should have meaning.
Three values to discover meaning
1. To creating work or do deeds
2. Experiencing something or encountering someone
3. Attitude we take to unavoidable suffering
The meaning of life is to help others find the meaning of theirs.