Viktor Frankl

Thinking Out Loud ~ Living a Life Without Regrets

by

Victor Frankl says in Man’s Search for Meaning, in speaking of responsibility, “Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now. . . . Such a precept confronts him with life’s finiteness, as well as the finality of what he makes out of both his life and himself.” P. 112

NOTE: I’ve met many people who live with regrets wishing they had done things differently. An old Texas rancher told me, “Ray, wish in one hand and poop in (he other (he didn’t use the word poop, but you get his meaning) and see what you get first.” When we live in the moment, we have the opportunity to, as Frankl says, act as if we were living a second time and as if the first time we acted as wrongly as we are about to act now. By following Frankl’s advice we will live a life without regrets.

Thinking Out Loud ~ An Important Question

by

Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning is both an autobiography of his time in the prison camps and a presentation of logotherapy or as Frankl says, the will to meaning. Referring to logotherapy, Frankl says, “As each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve. The question of the meaning of life may be actually reversed. Ultimately man should not ask what the meaning of his life is but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. Thus, logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence. Pps. 113-114

NOTE: Frankl presents a question that challenges us at each moment of our existence: “What is life asking of me at this moment?” Since we have free will we can choose to ignore the question, answer the question is a self-centered way, or to embrace the question and choose to be responsible to the unique circumstances we find ourselves in. It’s not always easy, it can be fraught with suffering and pain, yet it is our path toward meaning and living a fulfilled life.

Thinking Out Loud ~ A Moment of Grace

by

Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning describes incident shortly after his concentration camp was liberated. Although still living in the concentration camp, the prisoners were free to go wherever they wanted to go. Frankl found himself walking alone through the countryside. This is how he describes it. “I walked through the country past flowering meadows, for miles and miles toward the market town near the camp. Larks rose in the sky, and I could hear their joyous song. There was no one to be seen for miles around. There was nothing but the wide earth and sky in the lark’s jubilation, and the freedom of space. I stopped, looked around, and up to the sky; and then I went down on my knees. At that moment there was very little I knew of myself and of the world. I had, but one sentence in mind, always the same: I called to the Lord from my narrow prison, and He answered me in the freedom of space.”

Note: Have you ever had a spiritual experience similar to Frankl’s spontaneous experience of joy and gratitude? I have. When they’ve occurred to me, I have felt overwhelmed with the presence of God and felt the overwhelming desire to remain in that space forever. One cannot predict if and when they will occur, I call it a moment of grace.

Thinking Out Loud ~ There are Moments of Light

by

Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning describes an incident where he was speaking to fellow prisoners about finding meaning in their suffering. He said, “I also mentioned the past; all its joys, and how its light shone even in the present darkness. I quoted a poet to avoid sounding like a preacher, “What you have experienced no power on earth can take from you.” Not only our experiences, but all we have done whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we have suffered all this it is not lost. Though it is past; we have brought it into being. I told them they must not lose hope but should keep their courage .…” p. 90

NOTE: Each of us has moments of light, joy, and happiness in our past. These are our treasured memories. We can recall specific events where everything seemed to come together. Perhaps it was the moment we fell in love. It may have been a vacation, the birth of a child, there is something there for each of us. When things are not going well for us, we can step aside and recall moments when it did go well for us. In recalling these moments, we have our hope restored. We know there will be another day and that good things will once again come our way.

Something to Think About ~ Give the Gift of Hope

by

Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning speaks of a man losing all hope, and when he had lost all hope, he died. Frankl says, “Those who know how close the connection is between the state of mind of a man, his courage, and hope, or lack of them, and the state of immunity in his body will understand that a sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect. . . . When speaking of his friend who died, Frankl said, “His faith in the future, and his will to live, had become paralyzed, and his body fell victim to illness. Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on, he was so lost.” Pps 84-85

NOTE: One of the greatest gifts we can give each other is the gift of hope. Hope is the anchor to tomorrow. Hope gives us something to look forward to. It gives us something to wait with expectation of receiving. Hope is a gift of life. It is an emotional transfusion that reignites the life spark in a human being.

Something to Think About ~ Keep Looking Ahead

by

Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning speaks of prisoners who gave up all hope, “A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts. . . .  They preferred to close their eyes, and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of these experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge, and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners.” Pps. 82-83

Note: Frankl’s description of the prisoners is applicable to us. We need to find meaning in our lives, in our everyday actions. When we don’t have meaning in our lives we, like the prisoners Frankl describes, live in the past when we replay grievances and fail to forgive. When we let go of those things that continue to drag us into the past it is easier to get engaged in something meaningful (there are an infinite number of possibilities) keeping an eye on tomorrow. Keep looking ahead, never backward.

Something to Think About ~ Finding Meaning in Suffering

by

Victor Frankl says in Man’s Search for Meaning, “[T]here is also purpose in that life, which is a almost barren of both creation and enjoyment in which admits of, but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, and existence, restricted by external forces, a creative life and life of enjoyment are banned to him . . . if there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an inescapable part of life even as fate and death. Without suffering and death of human life cannot be complete.  . . . The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails . . .gives him ample opportunity, even under the most difficult circumstances, to add a deeper meaning to his life.” P. 76.

NOTE; When I first read this passage it made sense to me. Each time I re-read Man’s Search for Meaning it continued to make sense for me on an intellectual level. It wasn’t until my wife, suffering from brain cancer, died did I come to understand at a heart level what Frankl meant by finding meaning in suffering. My search for the meaning in my suffering did not ease my suffering, but it gave me deep insights into the lessons that suffering was teaching me. I became a different man, a better man, because of the suffering I experienced.

Something to think About ~ Following One’s Intuition

by

Viktor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, spoke of being put on a list to go on a transport to a rest camp. Those who know him told him not to go. It was a trick, they were really sending him to the gas chambers. Frankl’s intuition told him to go and let fate take its course. Later, he discovered that if he had stayed, he would’ve died. It reminded him of the story, The Death in Teheran.

Here is the story: a rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of the servants, the servant cried that he had just encountered Death who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse, so he could make haste in flee to Teheran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse. The master on returning to his house himself met Death, and questioned him, “Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?” “I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Teheran,” said Death. (p. 66)

Something to Think About ~ The Gift of Humor

by

Viktor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, described the things that helped the prisoners cope with their horrendous conditions, “To discover that there was any symptoms of art in a concentration camp must be surprise enough for an outsider. But he may be even more astonished to hear that one could find a sense of humor there as well; of course, only the faint traces of one, and then only for a few seconds or minutes. Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor more than anything else in the human makeup can afford, and aloofness and inability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds p. 54.”

NOTE: The use of humor can take a tough situation and reduce the tension associated with it, if only for a moment. We frequently create our own humor by adding an exaggeration to a situation. For example, an insensitive boss tosses a stack of papers on a worker’s desk and demands, “I want this report in an hour.” The worker in the break room relays the incident to his colleagues and adds, “We he gets home I wonder if he tells his pregnant wife, “I want the baby born now while I have a minute.” They all laugh and agree that is probably what happens.

Something to Think About ~ The Ultimate Path

by

From Viktor Frankl’s, Man’s Search for Meaning, “Another time we were at work in a trench. The dawn was grey around us; grey was the sky above; grey the snow in the pale light of dawn; grey the rags in which my fellow prisoners were clad; grey their faces. . . .  I was struggling to find the reason for my sufferings my slow dying.  . . . I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victorious “Yes” in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose. At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse which stood on the horizons as if painted there, in the midst of the  miserable grey of a dawning morning Bavaria (pp. 53).”

Note: We each have an ultimate purpose. It’s different for each one of us. Sometimes it takes mountains of suffering as Viktor Frankl experienced to discover it. Even in our deepest sufferings there are lessons we can learn if we are open to listening and acting on their message. Once we discover our ultimate purpose, our path becomes clear. We can take no other.

Verified by MonsterInsights