(calm music)
- [Instructor] During the Holocaust in the 1940s,
Viktor Frankl spent three years as a prisoner
in the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps.
His wife, father, mother and brother died in these camps.
He was faced with extreme hunger, debilitating illnesses
and brutal living conditions, yet unlike the prisoners
around him he somehow managed to find hope and meaning
during one of the most catastrophic events in human history.
It's no wonder Man's Search for Meaning
sold over 10 million copies and became one of the most
influential books in the world.
With that said, let's have a look at three
powerful lessons we can learn from the book.
Lesson one, he who has a why to live for
can bear with almost any how.
Frankl was confronted by a fellow inmate,
let's call him Felix.
Felix shared a dream he had in February 1945.
A voice told him he could wish for something
so he wished to know when he would be liberated
from the concentration camp
and have his sufferings come to an end.
The voice replied, March the 30th.
Felix had a strong sense of hope
and was convinced the voice in his dream was right.
As the date ticked closer the war got worse,
making it appear to be very unlikely that freedom was near.
On March the 29th, Felix suddenly became ill.
On March the 30th, the day he expected to be free,
he lost consciousness.
On March 31st he was dead.
To paraphrase Frankl's own words, the ultimate cause
of my friend's death was that the expected liberation
did not come and he was severely disappointed.
This suddenly lowered his body's resistance against
the latent typhus infection.
His faith in the future and his will to live had become
paralysed and his body fell victim to illness
and thus the voice of his dream was right after all.
To back up this case, I chief doctor
of the concentration camp witnessed an increased
death rate of prisoners between
Christmas 1944 and New Years 1945.
The doctor believe this was due to prisoners
having false hope that they would be
home again by Christmas.
As the time drew near, many lost hope
and fell into an endless sleep.
So you might be asking,
what can we learn from these stories?
Well Frankl sums it up by saying,
"Any attempt to restore a man's inner strength
"in the camp had first to succeed
"in showing him some future goal.
"Whenever there was an opportunity for it,
"one had to give them a why,
"an aim for their lives, in order to strengthen them
"to bear the terrible how of their existence."
Basically, the prisoners who found a reason to live
had a stronger will to live and chance of coming out alive
and those without a reason to keep going,
increased their likelihood of severe illness and death.
Frankl goes on to describe two prisoners
who were contemplating suicide.
They used the typical argument that they had nothing more
to expect from life, but they didn't commit suicide.
Why, because they found meaning, a reason to keep going.
For one it was his child waiting for him
in a foreign country, the other man was a scientist
who had written a series of books
which still needed to be finished.
A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears
toward a human being who affectionately waits for him
or to an unfinished work, will never be able
to throw away his life.
He knows the why for his existence
and will be able to bear almost any how.
Lesson two, love is the ultimate and highest goal
to which a man can aspire.
Frankl emphasises that everyone's meaning
is completely unique and that love
is the ultimate and highest goal to which a man can aspire.
It was one mans love for his child that kept him pushing
forward and for another it was his love for sharing
his findings with the world through books.
For Frankl himself, it was the love for his wife
that kept him going.
He realised the power of love on a cold dark day
where he and his inmates were commanded
to march out to a work site.
They emaciated prisoners were beaten and forced to trudge
over large stones and icy terrain.
One inmate whispered to Frankl, if our wives
could see us now, I do hope they are better off
in their camps and don't know what is happening to us.
Upon reflecting on this time in the past,
Frankl said, "I did not know whether my wife was
"alive and I had no means of finding out.
"But at that moment it ceased to matter.
"There was no need for me to know; nothing could touch
"the strength of my love, my thoughts,
"and the image of my beloved.
"Had I known then that my wife was dead,
"I think that I would still have given myself,
"undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation
"of her image and that my mental conversation
"with her would have been just as vivid
"and just as satisfying."
The final lesson is this, when we are no longer
able to change a situation,
we are challenged to change ourselves.
Before Frankl was put in a concentration camp,
he was working as a clinical psychiatrist.
He once had a client with severe depression.
Let's call him Peter.
Peter could not overcome the loss of his wife
who died two years ago.
Frankl asked him, what would have happened
if you had died first and your wife
would have had to survive for you.
Oh, he said, for her this would have been terrible.
She would have suffered.
Frankl replied, you see, Peter, such a suffering has been
spared and it was you who have spared her this suffering.
He said nothing, shook Frankl's hand
and calmly left the office.
Frankl said, "In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering
"in the moment it finds a meaning.
"such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
"Of course this was no therapy in the proper sense
"since first his despair was no disease;
"and second I could not change his fate;
"I could not revive his wife.
"But in that moment, I did succeed in changing his attitude
"toward his unalterable fate and he could now at least
"see a meaning in his suffering."
In the world today, countless people who have
found themselves in seemingly hopeless circumstances
have found meaning in their lives.
Nick Vujicic is a living example.
He was born with no arms or legs
but he overcame his disabilities to live an independent,
rich, fulfilling life where he serves as a role model
to help millions of people to overcome adversity
and living meaningful lives.
Some things in life are inevitable.
The loss of loved ones, terminal illnesses,
and forgotten memories.
Whatever we do, Man's Search for Meaning
challenges us to accept that we cannot avoid suffering
but we can choose how to cope with it,
find a meaning in it, and move forward.
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