Man’s search for Meaning

Book Review
Let it be known that this is my favourite book. I was in a very dark place when I stumbled upon this book. I had just lost my sister and nothing made sense. The pain was unbearable.   
Viktor E Frankl was an Austrian Neurologist and Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor.  The book consists of two parts. The first part is a short autobiography of his time in the concentration camps, as he experienced it as a logo therapist. The second part of the book is an introduction to his therapeutic doctrine of Logotherapy.  

This book will make you ponder about the meaning of life in general, and about the meaning of suffering in particular. I always ask why bad things happen to good people. I got the best answer from this book. 
This book made me realise that as humans we bound to suffer but what’s important is how we react to our suffering. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and your reaction to that particular situation. 

These are some of the wise words that have lingered with me after reading this profound book of wisdom and insight into human life.  
 
“Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.”   

“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.” 

“There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” 
 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation . . . we are challenged to change ourselves.” 
“He who knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how. ‘” 
 

“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.” 

“But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.” 

I reread this book once in a while to remind myself of the importance of hope and how it can help a human being to overcome one of the most harrowing experiences that humankind has ever witnessed on this planet.