Man's Search for Meaning | 52 Books in 52 Weeks | Book 8

By Tuesday, February 16, 2016

This weekend I was fairly free and I decided to pick up a psychology book. Someone on Twitter recommend this to me and when I realized the book was only 125 pages, I took it as sign and started reading it instantly.







Man's Search for Meaning - By Viktor E. Frankl



 


 Frankl, who was psychiatrist and a survivor of a Nazi Concentration Camp during the World War, wrote those book about the mind set of a prisoner during those times. I am not going to deny, there are some horifying details about the Nazis here and it took everything in me to not stop reading the book. But at the end of the book, I found something I never thought I would - Hope.


According to Frankl, a person's life is not driven by pleasure or power, its driven by meaning. And I have to agree with him over that, every body in this world is trying to find a meaning to their life.

Frankl's own term - 'Sunday Neurosis'


You know that feeling you get on a Sunday night when you realize your two free days are over and you have got to go back to that job that you don't even like? Frankl calls it Sunday Neurosis. He also connected it with depression.

According to him, depression occurs when the gap between who you are and who you want to be widens. Depression is a way of our body telling us that there is something wrong and we need to quickly do something about it. And Sunday Neurosis is a major cause of that.

While you might think its funny, I found it extremely enlightening, may be because I have gone through my own share of Sunday Neurosis. In fact, there were days when I would just cry on Monday mornings because I hated my job so much and I just couldn't get up and go to that stupid office again.

Of course, all these details are entwined with Frankl's experience in the horrifying Nazi Camp where people were dying every day. Even though he tries a lot to keep his tone scientific, I could almost see the horrifying scenes been enacted in my head.

Final Verdict

Over all, Frankl's book makes you ponder and rethink about your life. Seeing how he accepted all the terrible experiences and turned it into something great - a book which sold over 50 million copies, it definitely gives you more strength.

The book urges you to be the person you want to be and find the deeper meaning to your life.


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