As part of his life-saving therapy with suicidal patients
and his own experience in a Nazi concentration camp,
Frankl learned there are three things that give meaning to
life: first, a project; second, a significant relationship; and
third, a redemptive view of suffering. He realized that if
people, even in the bleakest of circumstances, have a job to
do, something to return to tomorrow, then they have a
reason to live another day. For Frankl, the book manuscript
he had been working on before entering the camp and the
hope of seeing his wife were what kept him alive. And in
time, he was able to see the purpose in his pain. Because he
had work to do, someone whom he believed was waiting for
him, and a certain attitude toward suffering, he survived it
when others did not. And his memoir, Man’s Search for
Meaning, became one of the most popular books of the
twentieth century, affecting millions of lives.^6
What we often don’t realize is that making our story
about us, even about our pain, is the wrong approach.
Dwelling on the past or fixating on the future won’t help
you find fulfillment. The way you beat a feeling of
purposelessness, according to Frankl, isn’t to focus on the
problem. It’s to find a better distraction. Which is a
roundabout way of saying you have to stop trying to be
happy. But doesn’t everyone want to be happy? Maybe not.
Life is too short to do what doesn’t matter, to waste your
time on things that don’t amount to much. What we all want
is to know our time on earth has meant something. We can
distract ourselves with pleasure for only so long before