This Forgotten Viktor Frankl Book Is (ALMOST) as Good as “Man’s Search for Meaning”

A new Viktor Frankl book? Is this for real? Yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

His most well-known book, Man’s Search for Meaning sold something like 12 million copies and tells the story of Frankl’s experience surviving the Nazi concentration camps during World War II — and it also changed my life forever from the very moment I read it.

This new book is a transcript of a public lecture he gave in Vienna just eleven months after being released from the camp, and after losing his wife, children, parents — everyone to the Nazi death camps.

This man, this — I don’t even know what — was somehow, somehow able to stand up in front of an audience and declare that no matter what, life is the ultimate value, and it is always and, in every moment, meaningful and beautiful.

Both of these books are just absolutely incredible and, though I hesitate to say things like “everyone needs to read this book,” in this case that’s probably right.

Here in this article are the 6 most important takeaways (and 9 additional takeaways) I’ve selected that’ll give you an idea of whether or not Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything is a book you’ll want to read for yourself…

Takeaway #1: A Whole Life in the Face of Death

“Let us imagine a man who has been sentenced to death and, a few hours before his execution, has been told he is free to decide on the menu for his last meal.

The guard comes into his cell and asks him what he wants to eat, offers him all kinds of delicacies; but the man rejects all his suggestions.

He thinks to himself that it is quite irrelevant whether he stuffs good food into the stomach of his organism or not, as in a few hours it will be a corpse. And even the feelings of pleasure that could still be felt in the organism’s cerebral ganglia seem pointless in view of the fact that in two hours they will be destroyed forever.

But the whole of life stands in the face of death, and if this man had been right, then our whole lives would also be meaningless, were we only to strive for pleasure and nothing else — preferably the most pleasure and the highest degree of pleasure possible.

Pleasure in itself cannot give our existence meaning; thus the lack of pleasure cannot take away meaning from life, which now seems obvious to us.”

I drink several delicious cups of coffee each morning, and the fact that I will (probably) eventually die does nothing to detract from the pleasure and enjoyment I get out of them.

But I don’t live just to drink coffee, in exactly the same way that Frankl’s imagined prisoner doesn’t live just to eat delicious food. It can make life better, yes, but it’s neither necessary nor sufficient for a meaningful life.

There has to be something more…

Takeaway #2: Happiness Can Never Be a Goal

“So, life is somehow duty, a single, huge obligation. And there is certainly joy in life too, but it cannot be pursued, cannot be ‘willed into being’ as joy; rather, it must arise spontaneously, and in fact, it does arise spontaneously, just as an outcome may arise: Happiness should not, must not, and can never be a goal, but only an outcome.”

Multitudes of people chase happiness, and very few find it. Happiness, against all reason, can never be pursued in itself — it’s only by going about our lives, living them, creating the conditions for happiness to arise, that it ever shows up. There’s something else I noticed too. Two things, actually.

One is that the people who talk about happiness all the time are some of the least happy people I’ve ever met! Certainly, obsessing over something, even happiness, is not conducive to its arrival.

Secondly, I’ve noticed that when I seek happiness for myself, it tends to elude me, but when I seek happiness for others, it tends to show up for me as well. Funny how that works!

Takeaway #3: It’s LIFE That Asks the Questions Around Here!

“It is not we who are permitted to ask about the meaning of life — it is life that asks the questions, directs questions at us — we are the ones who are questioned!

We are the ones who must answer, must give answers to the constant, hourly question of life, to the essential ‘life questions.’ Living itself means nothing other than being questioned; our whole act of being is nothing more than responding to — of being responsible toward — life.

With this mental standpoint nothing can scare us anymore, no future, no apparent lack of a future. Because now the present is everything as it holds the eternally new question of life for us. Now everything depends on what is expected of us. As to what awaits us in the future, we don’t need to know that any more than we are able to know it.”

I thought this was such a brilliant philosophical reframe the first time I read this, and I still find it fascinating to think about.

It’s helped me make more than one momentous decision in my life — shifting the focus from me directing questions to a gaping, endless void, to an image of the entirety of existence asking me questions. Asking me what I’m going to do. What’s important, what should be done, what I should aim for, who I should spend more time with, who I should help.

We’ll (likely) never get an answer to what is the ultimate purpose of existence — we can only supply answers of our own. And they change all the time, so we have to keep asking ourselves over and over, every day, every month, every year. Constantly. And always be willing to act on them.

Takeaway #4: Your Life’s Tasks Are Only for You

“The tasks that his life imposes are only for him, and only he is required to fulfill them. And a person who has not completely filled his (relatively) larger circle remains more unfulfilled than that of a person whose more closely drawn circle is sufficient.

In his specific environment, this tailor’s assistant can achieve more, and, in the things he does and the things he leaves undone, he can lead a more meaningful life than the person he envies, as long as that person is not aware of his greater responsibility in life and does not do justice to it.”

Another fantastic philosophical reframe, as far as I’m concerned, and one that doesn’t let you get away with anything.

What Frankl’s saying here is that different people have different responsibilities, different potentials, different ways they can be of service to the universe, and to others, and that it doesn’t matter how large or small one’s circle of influence is — it’s ours, and no one else can fulfill our obligations to the Life but us.

Takeaway #5: How is Survival Even Possible?

“Many of you who have not lived through the concentration camp will be astonished and will ask me how a human being can endure all the things I have been talking about. I assure you, the person who has experienced and survived all of that is even more amazed than you are!

But do not forget this: the human psyche seems to behave in some ways like a vaulted arch — an arch that has become dilapidated can be supported by placing an extra load on it. The human soul also appears to be strengthened by experiencing a burden.”

The best training places stress on the athlete or competitor, ideally more than they’ll ever experience in the actual competition or game.

That way, when the event arrives, they’ve faced way worse in training, and the game-time stress and challenge lacks the power to defeat them. It’s the same in life.

It’s in “training” that we get stronger. When we experience reversals, setbacks, and challenges, we’re training ourselves to deal with greater challenges, greater obstacles, and even though we may prefer not to experience them at all, we’re much better off for the experience.

Takeaway #6:

“To say yes to life is not only meaningful under all circumstances — because life itself is — but it is also possible under all circumstances. And ultimately that was the entire purpose of these three parts: to show you that people can still — despite hardship and death (first part), despite suffering from physical or mental illness (second part) or under the fate of the concentration camp (third part) — say yes to life in spite of everything.”

This is how Frankl brought together his talk at the end, to show everyone in attendance that they were capable beyond measure, that they could not only endure what life would throw at them, but that they could positively affirm the value of life and existence, no matter what.

And again, this was a Holocaust survivor saying this, not somebody like me who’s never experienced anything close to something so traumatic. I’ve faced challenges, sure, and I’ve had setbacks, believe me! But somehow, it just means more coming from Frankl — you believe him, and not only that, you see that he’s telling you this because he believes in you so strongly too.

Frankl knew that humanity was (is) selling itself short, and his whole message was that no matter what life brings, we always retain the power of choice, the power to determine the meaning of our own lives, and to show others what’s possible through our example.

Complete Notes from “Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything” (Free)

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“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was duty. I worked — and behold, duty was joy.”

-Rabindranath Tagore

“A person should never become a means to an end.”

“What do athletes do but create difficulties for themselves so that they can grow through overcoming them?”

“If I step onto my misfortune, I stand higher.”

-Hölderlin

“Fate really is integral in the totality of our lives; and not even the smallest part of what is destined can be broken away from this totality without destroying the whole, the configuration of our existence.”

“Any hour whose demands we do not fulfill, or fulfill half-heartedly, this hour is forfeited, forfeited ‘for all eternity.’ Conversely, what we achieve by seizing the moment is, once and for all, rescued into reality in which it is only apparently ‘canceled out’ by becoming the past.

In truth, it has actually been preserved, in the sense of being kept safe. Having been is in this sense perhaps even the safest form of being. The ‘being,’ the reality that we have rescued into the past in this way, can no longer be harmed by transitoriness.”

“Certainly, our life, in terms of the biological, the physical, is transitory in nature. Nothing of it survives — and yet how much remains!”

“How we longed for proper human suffering at that time, real human problems, real human conflicts, in place of these degrading questions of eating or starving, freezing or sleeping, toiling or being beaten.

With deep melancholy and sadness we thought back to the time when we still had our human sufferings, problems, and conflicts and not the suffering and perils of an anima; but when thinking ahead to the future, how heartfelt was our longing for a state in which we would exist by no means without suffering, problems, and conflicts, in which we would indeed have to suffer, but to suffer that particular form of meaningful suffering that has been imposed on a human being in his very humanity.”

“It is terrible to know that at every moment I bear responsibility for the next; that every decision, from the smallest to the largest, is a decision ‘for all eternity’; that in every moment I can actualize the possibility of a moment, of that particular moment, or forfeit it.

Every single moment contains thousands of possibilities — and I can only choose one of them to actualize it. But in making the choice, I have condemned all the others and sentenced them to ‘never being,’ and even this is for all eternity!

But it is wonderful to know that the future — my own future and with it the future of the things, the people around me — is somehow, albeit to a very small extent, dependent on my decisions in every moment. Everything I realize through them, or ‘bring into the world,’ as we have said, I save into reality and thus protect from transience.”

Complete Notes from “Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything” (Free)

Download My Complete Notes from More Than 1,300+ Books ($1)

Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything is a great book and I absolutely recommend reading it for yourself. These takeaways give you a very good idea of what’s waiting for you there, but if these interested you, definitely read the whole book.

And of course, if you want more book recommendations from me (selected from the 1,300+ books I’ve read at the time of writing), subscribe to my free newsletter, The Reading Life, which is enjoyed by 5,600+ people each week.

There’s also my YouTube channel, where I post in-depth book reviews, podcast interviews with famous authors, and tactical videos that will help you earn more money in your business.

With that said, I hope you enjoyed (and profited from) these takeaways, and I’ll be back soon with more great books!

All the best,

Matt Karamazov

P.S. These 100 Books Will RADICALLY Improve Your Life👇

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