Viktor Frankl's Search For Meaning Analysis

Many people, myself included, will walk through life and avoid all of that which hurts. We will shrug away from pain and dodge agony; we will shy away from almost any discomfort that we encounter because we see no gain through it. Why would we allow ourselves sadness, when we could cling to happiness? But the real question is, can we have one without the other? Can we truly feel joy and pleasure without first knowing the pain of suffering? Joy and suffering are relative concepts which can only be governed by personal experience and expectation. Many of us live our lives with the purpose, with the hope of acquiring an equilibrium, at which life’s hardships no longer hurt us, a painless state. We strive to find the meaning in our lives by removing that which means suffering. But life is not often about middle ground, or even a balance, but about braving the struggles that we are faced with in a meaningful way, finding beauty in the fundamental frictions of life and discovering meaning despite it and even though the hardships. Viktor Frankl shows us that “in some way, suffering ceases to be …show more content…
Frankl was himself a prisoner in the concentration camps. He arrived in the camps as a psychiatrist, a husband, a person with a name but was reduced to nothing but a number to which he was known as. He was a prisoner, he was number 119,104 and he had to survive life on the camp. As a psychiatrist, Frankl had spent much of his time helping others, he had centered his life around improving the lives of others and furthering the abilities of psychology. Before his imprisonment he had poured his heart and mind into a manuscript which he aimed to one day complete and apply to the world. The precious manuscript was seized from Frankl during his induction to the concentration camp. His greatest life’s work was lost to him despite his efforts to hold onto