Have you ever wondered what is the meaning of life? It’s hard to define the meaning of life in a general way that everyone can relate to. But I found a book that almost nailed it. Man's Search for Meaning by E viktor frankl.

What Is The Meaning Of Life?

E Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy is a school of psychology that suggests that meaning in life is the primary motivation of life (Will to meaning).According to Freudian psychoanalysis, Man wants pleasure (will to pleasure).But Alderian psychology is based on the fact that Humans strive for superiority (Will to power). Also endorsed by Nietzsche.

Three Schools of Psychology

So according to him, you can discover the meaning of life in three different ways.No.1)By finding a work that not only excites you but also adds to the community. When you turn your passion into a profession and inspire others to do the same, you find immense meaning in life.No.2)By falling in love or experiencing things like goodness, truth and beauty. I know it sounds cliche but it is what it is.No.3)In the attitude you take towards unavoidable suffering. How do you deal with the darkest of times because life is full of suffering?

3 Ways To Discover The Meaning Of Life

Here’s another way to look at this. Maybe it is not you who is asking the question, maybe it is life that is asking you "What sort of meaning are you going to give this life."And You will not find the answer in some abstract philosophy because the meaning of life is not something vague but very real and concrete just like your life’s task. So If you wake up every day and respond to life by being responsible to your daily tasks and duties. Then You find profound meaning in Life. People have found immense meaning in responsibility.

Responsibility Gives Meaning 

Pleasure or Happiness seems to be a bad compass for life. They're a side effect of a moral venture. But As an aim, they're only for toddlers or narcissists because when you’re suffering you’re gonna need something that is more robust than happiness to overcome the insurmountable obstacles. But An individual who is striving for meaning in life can overcome any obstacles, he is the most ready for an adventure like life. He who has a why to live can almost bear it anyhow.

Happiness is a bad compass for life

When you’re optimistic even in the face of the TRAGIC TRIAD and saying yes to life in spite of everything and learning how to turn life’s negative aspects into something positive or constructive then you know what it means to be Tragically Optimistic.The Tragic Triad of Life consists of the following:1)Pain2)Guilt 3)Death.

Tragic optimism

Love enables us to see potential in the beloved person which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. No one can fully become aware of the very essence of another human being unless one loves the other. Driven by love one encourages the other to actualize the potential.Love is as primary a phenomenon as sex. Sex is justified and even sanctified as soon as, but only as long as, It is a vehicle of love.

Meaning of love

Don't aim at success - the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. Success, like happiness, cannot be pursuedThey are the byproduct of following a cause that is much greater than ourselves or the byproduct of following habits, processes, systems or routines. Instead, listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run - in the long run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it."

Don't aim for happiness and success

All this is still a conjecture because we can never be sure about the ultimate meaning of life as humans are still not at the terminal point of evolution in the big game of the cosmos.The ultimate meaning of life is beyond our comprehension and surpasses the finite intellectual capacities of humans. You have to make peace with the idea that humans are incapable to be sure about unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.

Super Meaning 

Pain encourages us to turn human suffering into achievement and human accomplishment.Guilt propels us to seize an opportunity to change ourselves for the better. Death being life’s most transitory moment teaches us to be more responsible with our time and be less vain in our pursuits. Life is defined by death, if we were immortal we would be less productive and vain in our pursuits. We would have been more dead than alive. PS: You must understand that you can’t command yourself to be tragically optimistic.

Three Biggest Teachers of Life

We all are buffeted by this question time after time, What is the meaning of this life?

Over 16 million copies sold worldwide 'Every human being should read this book' Simon Sinek One of the outstanding classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in our own lives.

books

Books

A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that he and other inmates coped with the experience of being in Auschwitz. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. The sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Only those who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp's degenerating influence - while those who made a victory of those experiences turned them into an inner triumph. Frankl came to believe that man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living.

Viktor Emil Frankl M.D., Ph.D., was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form of Existential Analysis, the "Third Viennese School" of psychotherapy.His book Man's Search for Meaning (first published under a different title in 1959: From Death-Camp to Existentialism. Originally published in 1946 as Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager) chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic method of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most sordid ones, and thus a reason to continue living. He was one of the key figures in existential therapy.

Tragic optimism

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