Book #31 Man's Search For Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This 1946 memoir by Viktor E. Frankl is set against a backdrop of one of human history’s cruelest and most horrific chapters and yet it argues that the key to finding happiness begins with letting go of your pursuit of happiness. This powerful, psychological memoir and meditation on the author’s experience at Auschwitz, argues that meaning, not success or happiness, is the driving pursuit of human life. The book presents Frankl’s theory of logotherapy, which holds that man’s fundamental drive is to find life’s “potential meaning under any conditions.” As Frankl wrote, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” American psychologist Carl Rogers called the work “one of the outstanding contributions to psychological thought in the last 50 years.”

It is a timeless formula for survival, profoundly honest and an inspiring document.

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