DAY 124 - VICTOR FRANKL AND FINDING A PURPOSE TO YOUR LIFE

Day 124

Victor Frankl was a Jewish-born Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist who lived from 1905 to 1997.  After graduating from Medical School, he met Freud and Adler, two prominent psychiatrists of his time.  He quickly dissociated himself from their theories and developed his own approach to psychotherapy, an existential based approach called logotherapy. 

Victor Frankl was a survivor of the holocaust.  That experience alone, provided him with an hands-on perspective in regards to suffering that would lead the way to his philosophy of life. 

While in the concentration camps, Frankl describes how he found the will to survive in a book called A Man’s Search For Meaning. His reason to live was the image of his wife.

Victor Frankl

“But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look then was more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.”

In fact, while he was in concentration camps,  Frankl noticed that among those given a chance for survival, it was those who held on to a vision of the future, whether it was a significant task before them, or a return to their loved ones, that were most likely to survive their suffering.

Based on his personal experience, Frankl developed logotherapy which aims at helping people suffering a depression find a meaning to their life. According to logotherapy, there are three ways you can discover meaning in life:

1. By creating a deed;

2. By experiencing value;

3. By the attitude you take toward unavoidable suffering.

For Frankl, happiness is really an existential question. If you find your purpose in life, you will know why you are alive. You will have a reason to wake up in the morning and you will know why you do what you do. Knowing your purpose in life can give you the motivation and strength to cope with daily challenges and accomplish your goals.  We all have a purpose, finding it can help us lead a more fulfilling life.   

“ Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.”