SeePetey
Highly Trained Ape
FASTLANE INSIDER
Read Fastlane!
Read Unscripted!
Summit Attendee
Speedway Pass
A powerful book on so many levels. While I doubt I'll ever find myself in the desperate circumstances that Dr Frankl experienced, most all of us can easily identify ourselves as members of what Thoreau aptly described as the mass of men leading lives of quiet desperation. Frankl's experiences, and the practical lessons for coping that he teaches, are powerful lessons for all of us.
I re-read this book every year or two, and I gift it frequently.
I found it quite interesting when he talked about how one of the worst parts about being in the camp was the complete loss of control of any aspect of the prisoners' lives, and how without something to strive for or a purpose, so many people just gave up and died that might have otherwise lived.
Also, after his notes and manuscript were taken away from him, and how the desire to write and publish this manuscript gave him a thread of some hope to a life beyond the death camps, there's something we can all learn from that, especially in the context of what's typically discussed on this forum. He demonstrates that without challenges or meaning in our lives, the absence of them can literally kill us. And that having a "why", no matter how tenuous it may seem at the dark and desperate moments, when pursued it can grow into something that has a positive influence on millions.
He wrote: " What man actually needs is not a tension-less state, but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him."
Look at overnight celebrities and lottery winners. Even when provided everything they could need to sustain them for the rest of their lives, the lack of focus/purpose/meaning eats away at them and the usually crash and burn hard.
I re-read this book every year or two, and I gift it frequently.
I found it quite interesting when he talked about how one of the worst parts about being in the camp was the complete loss of control of any aspect of the prisoners' lives, and how without something to strive for or a purpose, so many people just gave up and died that might have otherwise lived.
Also, after his notes and manuscript were taken away from him, and how the desire to write and publish this manuscript gave him a thread of some hope to a life beyond the death camps, there's something we can all learn from that, especially in the context of what's typically discussed on this forum. He demonstrates that without challenges or meaning in our lives, the absence of them can literally kill us. And that having a "why", no matter how tenuous it may seem at the dark and desperate moments, when pursued it can grow into something that has a positive influence on millions.
He wrote: " What man actually needs is not a tension-less state, but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him."
Look at overnight celebrities and lottery winners. Even when provided everything they could need to sustain them for the rest of their lives, the lack of focus/purpose/meaning eats away at them and the usually crash and burn hard.