Lesson # 1: Humanity has an infinite capacity for both good and bad.

We have the ability to love and protect, while also possessing the ability to despise and destroy.

It’s not so simple as there being types of people: those who are good and those who are bad.

As Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said: “The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”

Lesson # 2: We have some say in how we approach suffering

Suffering is unavoidable. It is something all of humanity, regardless of creed, culture, or class, shares in.

Frankl believes we have some autonomy to adopt a redeemable view of suffering; that we are not completely powerless.

Frankl writes, “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.”

Lesson # 3: You don’t need an abstract meaning of life to live a meaningful life

Having a wordy, vague description of the meaning of life is not necessary to live a meaningful life.

To ask the question: what is the meaning of life? is similar, Frankl notes, to asking a chess master what is the best move in the world?

The best chess move, just like the meaning of life, is highly subjective and particular to where one finds themself.

Our answer is determined by how we choose to live.

Lesson # 4: Regardless of life circumstances, we are able to make meaning.

To clarify: making meaning does not mean making sense. 

You still can make meaning from what is simply too absurd or tragic to make sense of.

Frankl believed:

• Life has meaning under all circumstances
• Our motivation for living is our will to find meaning
• We have the freedom to find meaning

Lesson # 5: Logotherapy can help us find and live with meaning

Frankl believed it was meaning we long for, not power or pleasure. His form of psychotherapy, called logotherapy, focused on helping people discover and create meaning.

We can create / discover meaning through:

• Creating a work or doing a deed
• Experiencing something / encountering someone
• Changing our view of unavoidable suffering

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This incredible book also has some potentially life-changing quotes.

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