Man’s Search For Meaning

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist/neurologist, survived three years at the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was deported with other Jews, in 1942. Even in the wretched hopelessness of the brutal environment, he followed Friedrich Nietzsche — ‘He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.’

Frankl understood that everything can be seized from a man but the freedom to choose one’s attitude, even under extreme distress. Man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather recognise that it is he who is asked. Frankl now asks his students not to aim for success, as success, like happiness, cannot be pursued —it has to ensue as an unintended consequence of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself.

Listen to your conscience, he says, and follow it steadfastly. He narrates a life-changing incident. As the ominous drum roll of anti-semitism spread across German-occupied Europe, Frankl procured an immigrant visa to the US in 1941. His old parents were overjoyed that a bright futureawaited their brilliant son.


But Frankl was in anguish at the terrible fate that awaited Jews in Vienna. Just then, he found a jagged piece of marble on a table at home. His father told him that he picked it up from the debris of their nearbysynagogue, burnt down by the Nazi storm troopers. It was a fragment of the Ten Commandments and it said, ‘Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land.’ Frankl let his visa lapse.