10 Lessons From Viktor Frankl On Adversity

Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist and writer, was sent to Auschwitz, Dachau and other concentration camps during WWII.

This experience and his training allowed him to establish a great reflection on the meaning of life, which he has expressed in numerous books, the most famous of which is entitled “Discovering a meaning in one’s life”.

He is the creator of a new therapy which he calls logotherapy, or existential analysis. This term derives from “logos”, already approached by Heraclitus in the 6th century BC.

It was later that Viktor Frankl used it as a “meaning”. In other words, logotherapy is therapy that focuses on finding the meaning of life for each person.

It is a therapy that is applied to people who suffer from existential problems, when facing a profound change or a personal crisis.

We all go through life situations that make us suffer and that we don’t know how to deal with.

Unfortunately, there is no one formula that will work every time, and then we have to accept that suffering is a part of life.

The lessons that can give us a person who spent three years in a concentration camp and who managed to overcome this ordeal must be taken into account to make us see life from another point of view and to motivate us day after. day. Here are some lessons from the great Viktor Frankl:

The importance of choosing

The difference between a person who knows how to overcome his problems and face adversity in life and a person who does not, is that the former is a person who decides, who chooses to be one thing or one. another, despite the vagaries of life and the conditions in which it finds itself.

Life always has meaning, no matter the circumstances

Doctor Frankl speaks of despair as a mathematical operation. Indeed, despair is equal to aimless suffering. If a person cannot find meaning in their suffering, despair will arise.

However, if the person is able to find meaning in adversity, they will be able to turn their tragedies into success, into a form of overcoming.

Your daily actions will allow you to be the best version of yourself

It’s something we have to think about every day to know who we are and who we want to be, to be able to become the best version of ourselves, to show all the extraordinary that there is in each of us and so that others see it and know how to appreciate it.

Think about the things and people that give you a reason to live

We all have things and people that make us want to live, a reason that keeps us moving forward every day, that motivates us and gives meaning to every second of our existence, every step or every action that we carry out.

How we react to conditions that cannot be changed is up to us.

If we don’t have the power to change the situation, we can always decide our attitude towards that same situation.

In other words, there is always something inside that we can change, because there is always a part of ourselves that is only up to us.

Think about what life brings to you, what life expects from you, as our life continually challenges us and demands things of us.

We must then ask ourselves what we can do to change our life, what we can bring to the world, and thus react accordingly.

Adversity and suffering exist

All the bad in our life is something that is out there and that we have to come to terms with. A tension is created between what we have already obtained and what cannot yet be obtained.

We don’t need to live without adversities, but we need to know that there will be adversities, that they are a part of life and that we must strive for what is worth it, to make sense.

No one is essential but we are all irreplaceable

When we accept the fact that it is impossible to replace a person, then appears the responsibility of the man who assumes for his existence.

A man who is aware that a person is waiting for him or that he has an unfinished task takes responsibility and knows the why, the meaning of his life.

Discover the meaning of your life

The interest of man is not to find pleasure or to avoid pain, but to find meaning in his life. Even in times when we are in pain, we must find meaning in this pain.

No one can step into your shoes and suffer for you. So your only opportunity is the attitude you decide to adopt in the face of suffering.

We all have a purpose, but sometimes we are not yet aware of it.