#2 Read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

I don't remember where I heard about this book, or why exactly I put it on this list, but it was a great read to gain some perspective and reflect. I feel like his philosophy must have already permeated our culture because it aligned so closely with things I already feel and believe. That is the magic of books - the feeling that you've reached out across time and connected with another person that you will never meet.

I'll share a few of the quotes that stood out to me, which I hope will inspire you to pick up this book as well!

On the meaning of life:

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that 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....It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful."

"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."

On success:

"Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it."

On love:

“My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn't even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing—which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
        I did not know whether my wife was alive, and I had no means of finding out (during all my prison life there was no outgoing or incoming mail); 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 thought, 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 conversations with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. 'Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.”

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Also, this is the 50% mark of my 40 before 40 list! Clearly, I've focused on the "easier" items, but I love how motivated this list keeps me to get out in the world and do things.

Item 2 Completed 12/24/19
23/46 items complete = 50%