What does it really mean to find meaning in life?

Man’s search for meaning by Viktor Frankl (my takeaway from the book)

At some point in life, everyone comes to ask himself what life means? I personally do it more often. I don’t know, maybe because I’m in my twenties. The more I grow up, the more I feel the need to have answers about life. I sometimes feel lost, I lose motivation and feel like what I’m doing makes no sense at all.

I spent all night looking at the ceiling, the wall, checking the time every 5 minute. I could not sleep. Something, is bothering me and I don’t know what. I could not trust myself anymore in taking decisions in my life about anything at all.

As, the books I generally read are chosen to help me fill the emptiness feeling I’m having at the moment. It was for me the perfect moment to find a book that could help me. My need to find answers pushed me to look for an autobiography, hoping it would give me some answers and bring me some tranquility in my life.

I’ve looked for the best autobiography on Google and YouTube and I came across a book that got my attention by its title. Man’s search for meaning, by a psychotherapist named Victor Frankl.

Man’s search for meaning? I thought, this is me! In the preview it says the book is a personal story about his own experience living in a concentration camp as a prisoner, how with other prisoners they struggle and, from that experience, what he concludes as one’s meaning of life. Okay! Sounds good. I just needed to find a concrete answer to this question : what is the meaning of life?

The answer I find in the book puts me just in my place: Life does not actually have a specific meaning if not the one we give to it.

It’s not me who asks life what it means, instead it is life who asks me what it is that it can expect from me. Waouh! I was looking at it upside down.

He goes on and explains in the book that the meaning of life, resides actually, in every task we choose to take and is unique to each moment. It is therefore our responsibility to choose those tasks and, if necessary, accept the suffering that comes with them. The story told in the book and the insights are incredible and have profoundly changed the way I see the world, life and changed my state of mind.

After reading it, I took time to think more deeply about what I have that I can give to life. I have a clear vision on that (not a definitive one), but today I’m in a better place. The moment I start feeling anxious instead of sleeping I ask myself if it is about my vision in life. If not, it is not worth worrying about because it means i have no control over those things and, plus I do have what to actually worry about. Thinking like that simply calms me down.

It is easy for a person, especially, for us young people in our twenties, to fall in the trap of anxiety, depression, and knowing what we want to do with our life can help us get over it.

For everyone that feels lost, I recommend reading this book. It helps me, and it can help you too.