SEEKING MEANING

Love, Jamestown, NC

PRISONER NO. 119104

Viktor Frankl survived three long unimaginable years of his life in a Nazi concentration camp while most of his family including his wife perished in another camp. His book on Man’s Search for Meaning has been read by millions of people searching for meaning in life. There were other survivors in these horrendous circumstances besides Frankl, but it was quickly observed that when a prisoner had lost any reason or meaning for living, they wouldn’t last very long. Others who knew the why of their existence could withstand almost any how.

Frankl wrote that “we who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way…Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself—be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is.”

Although Frankl’s wife didn’t survive the holocaust, the possibility brought him hope and a reason to live. His epiphany in the camp was “that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire…The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

My favorite definition of unconditional love is that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more and nothing we can do to make God love us less. And it also applies when we make a difference in somebody’s life who has no possibility of returning the favor. Otherwise, we’re just doing business. There are many things in life that we encounter which are out of our control, except one thing—how we choose to respond.