What Does Man's Search For Meaning Mean

Viktor Frankl’s thesis found in Man’s Search for Meaning is repeated multiple times, in different ways throughout his book. On page 111 he states, “According to logotherapy, we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering” (Frankl). This is not saying that all of those qualities have to be present to find one’s meaning though especially suffering. The only way to find the meaning of life is by answering your own call for life, not what others value as meaning. Each meaning

Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning describes life in a concentration camp and the mental and emotional effects that come with it. "Life in a concentration camp tore open the human soul and exposed it depths" (87). This essay details some of the specific themes of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. Two of the main themes in this book are love and hope.

In Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning we are told a powerful story of a man’s survival through the Holocaust. Frankl struggles to not only keep his body alive, but his spirit as well. Frankl’s main goal is to not only come out alive from the Holocaust but to not let it change him and ultimately defeat or take over his life and change who he truly is. He knows the only way to stay alive is to find some sort of meaning in his life. As we watch him fight to survive during his stay in concentration camps we begin to realize that the only way he is surviving is because he hasn’t forgotten who he still is and the identity that the Nazi’s were trying to take from him. He keeps his personal identity, goals, and morals in mind while

Although each individual person has their own unique responses to crises, there are often commonalities in behavior following certain events. On October 1, 2015, a man came onto the campus of my town’s community college, killed nine people, and injured many more. The entire community was stricken with grief; however, it was even worse for those who knew the victims. A close friend of mine named Daniel lost one of his best friends in the shooting, and as he was grieving, his behavior began to reflect the symptoms of the third stage concentration camp prisoners experienced as described in Viktor E. Frankl’s autobiography Man’s Search for Meaning.

In the book Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl, he uses his past experiences from different concentration camps to describe what he learned was the true meaning of life. Throughout the book he describes in details that he had no hope for life as he felt pain, humility, and human cruelty during his time as a prisoner in multiple concentration camps. Frankl, believed that he had a chance to survive by using inner strengths. His great sense of humor helped him get though the many difficult situations that he had encountered. He supposed that “what doesn’t kill you makes your stronger.”

Imagine being arrested, forced out of your home, transported to a jail-like camp, and seeing people die all around you while wondering if you would be next - all due to your race, religion, or sexuality. This situation seems unrealistic for the 21st century, but sadly, just one century prior, this circumstance was reality for millions of people, including Viktor Frankl, who tells the story of his Holocaust experience. Between the years of 1933 and 1945, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi soldiers captured anyone who he viewed as a lesser race. Common targets included Gypsies, Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Afro-Germans, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, disabled people, and the most common, Jews. About two-thirds (six million) of European Jews were killed during the Holocaust, more than one million of these were children (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Frankl turned his experiences and findings into an extremely powerful novel, Man’s Search for Meaning. He tells his story of living in a concentration camp, while also introducing and explaining his psychological theory of logotherapy.

In “The Meaning of Lives,” Wolf asserts that the question “What is the Meaning of Life?” is inherently unintelligible because it is uncertain what the question is asking. In other words it is too general because it has no specified context. Wolf then acknowledges, however, that there is value in examining the meaningfulness of a life. This is because she observes people wanting meaning as an unchangeable fact. While there is no grand reason for meaning, she suggests that we can create value through what we do in our life. In her work, Wolf constructs a framework on how to obtain meaning in one’s life. I will examine her view, then critically discuss the positive attributes and the shortcomings. Wolf does a sufficient job to outline a possible way to achieve meaning. However, I will argue that a definition for the meaningful life that does not include morality and happiness is not sufficient. Lastly, I will express the subjective and objective tension that weakens her stance.

Many philosophers, throughout centuries of human existence, have deciphered, or at least attempted tried to cast some light on to, our purpose. Consulting their findings could give several answers on whether we should live to maximize our pleasure, minimize our pain, avoid frustration or achieve greatness. In my own considerations, though, sorting through the tumultuous noise and clutter of the world around me for the some obscured or hidden meaning was not necessary. To me, the noise and clutter is the meaning. I do not live for what is hidden; I live for what is all around me. My experiences are not tools that assist me in find some truth. Rather, they are the truth. In other words the Good in my life is, in fact, life in its entirety.

The book, in autobiographical mode, relates Auschwitz to the life of the author Viktor E. Frankl in the concentration camps of the former Nazi Germany. It reports the cruelty in which the SS soldiers used to mistreat the prisoners and in turn explains how the concentration camp life in the mind of the average prisoner affected.

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.” I am Alexis Brown a current freshmen at the University of Southern Mississippi. I am a psychology major, which works incoherence to why I have a passion for serving and supporting others. This quote speaks to my inner being because I personally have a passion and servant’s heart to see people beyond myself, encouraged, supported, and valued. No matter their background, race, culture, values, or morals.

A man is not searching for freedom, or waiting for death, but searching for the meaning of his life. Frankel who went through great agony in living Auschwitz. He overcomes challenges, by finding a way to survive. As I learned from Man's Search for Meaning. I realize that there is one thing that sticks in my head that can be related today as that is surviving. Living in the concertation camp there's ones thing that is a primary in everyone's head and that is survival. Even going to their primatial instincts just to survive. As I see people today singing to make a dollar so they feed themselves or their family. People who will break the law to be rich or become more powerful. As a great Anthropologist once said life is the Survival of the fittest"

The book “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl is a story following Viktor, a psychiatrist, during his time spent in Jewish concentration camps back during WWII. He explains his experiences in a psychological way, explaining feelings and thoughts prisoners had while being held captive. It’s a good insight into the human mind and why life has meaning. The story starts with Viktor explaining the transport and entrance to the camp.

Life is dictated with an overarching sense of purpose. Living with a purpose allows an individual to see beyond any current frustrations or woes of any situation while remaining on the path to greater fulfilment. As discussed in Part I of Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, the prisoners in Nazi Concentration Camps who looked beyond the current duress of their situations – and created some sense of purpose in living – were the ones who best survived the hardships within the camp confines. The concept of purpose varies with the individual, but connects people to a greater sense of meaning in life. Discovering a purpose is not as tractable as Frankl dictates. Living does entail a purpose, but uncovering the purpose can be complex and difficult for people at times. When surviving in the Concentration Camps, Frankl uncovered the underlying truth that, “it did not really matter what we expected from life, but

In “There’s More to Life Than Being Happy,” Emily Esfahani Smith writes about the conflict between Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Happiness” and the culture today, which focuses on happiness in life rather than meaning. She introduces Viktor Frankl as a star medical and psychology student who survived the Holocaust in 1942. While Frankl was kept hostage in his camp, he was forced to find the good in life in order to survive. After being liberated, Frankl recorded his experience and what he learned in nine days, creating a best-seller in the United States. Smith explains that even though it has been concluded that Americans’ happiness is at an all-time high, the Center for Disease Control says that almost fifty percent of Americans have not found a purpose in life. Smith tells that bad mental health, self-esteem, and depression are less likely to be found in those who have found a pleasurable meaning in life. Happiness is associated with being a “taker”, while having a meaning life is associated with being a “giver” according to Smith. The downside to having a purpose for one’s life is the fact that he or she is usually more unhappy due to stress and worry than those who only strive for happiness, Smith explains. A study in 2011 proved that if someone has a negative circumstance occur in his or her lifetime, that event will give him or her more of a drive to find meaning in life rather than happiness. Smith concluded by linking these other sources with Frankl’s

The premise of Frankl’s book is that mankind’s desire for meaning is much stronger than its desire for power or pleasure and that if man can find meaning in life he can survive anything. Frankl introduces this idea [which he calls the theory of logotherapy] throughout his concentration camp experiences in the book’s first section and delves deeper into it in the second section. Referencing Nietzsche, Frankl tells us “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'” (p. 80). The most important thing to be learned from this statement is that no matter what your circumstances are, you can be happy, or at least survive, if you find a meaning or purpose in life. While in the concentration camp Frankl tells us that in order to maintain his desire to have a meaningful life he focused on three main things: suffering, work, and love. Of sacrifice