I was mind-blown yet again after reading Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning&quot

It was book sale day the other day at the public library and, of course, I was there at the scene of the crime. I was in "treasure hunt" mindset looking to find anything interesting I could grab my hands on. Suddenly, I found this book from the 80's titled "Man's Search for Meaning". As I was reading a few lines through the book, it caught my attention that the author had been a Holocaust survivor who had been a doctor and written this book to bring together what he had learned from his experiences. I bought it for fifty cents. Best buy ever.

This was my first introduction to Viktor Frankl and his logotherapy theory. If you are interested in learning more, check out this quick read on his life and ideas.

For the purposes of this article, I am going to address one of the many ideas that really struck me and thought I'd share with you.

Viktor Frankl states that there three ways that we can create meaning in our lives:

(1) By creating a work or doing a deed

(2) By experiencing something or encountering someone

(3) By the attitude that we take toward the unavoidable suffering

The first two are not too difficult to understand. When we are creating or doing something we love (i.e. painting a work of art, providing services as a police officer or doctor, meeting with friends on a Friday night, reading a book, etc.), we feel at ease with ourselves and gain a kind of flow that resembles happiness and fulfillment.

The difficult one to grasp and understand is the third bullet - how can we find happiness and fulfillment by the attitude that we take toward the unavoidable suffering?

This is Frankl's response:

"After a while I proceeded to another question, this time addressing myself to the whole group. The question was whether an ape which was being used to develop poliomyelitis serum, and for this reason punctured again and again, would ever be able to grasp the meaning of its suffering. Unanimously, the group replied that of course it would not; with its limited intelligence, it could not enter into the world of man, i.e., the only world in which the meaning of its suffering would be understandable.

Then I pushed forward with the following question: 'And what about man? Are you sure that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man's world; a world in which the question fo an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?'...

....What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaningless of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms."

There is so much of life that we do not understand or can control.

This can lead many of us to believing in the meaningless of life. But it is during those moments of "apparent meaningless" when we must learn to trust the process and live the commitment to show-up.

When we decide to trust the process of development, growth, flow, life (or whatever else you might want to call it) because we cannot understand it or control it, we are choosing to be available to showing up with our best-selves to whatever life might throw at us.

And in trusting that process we must remember to not let go of our responsibilities because we believe our actions or who we are really don't matter. We must commit to always showing up with our best-selves during that process, even and specially when it is hard.

The attitude you take towards the unavoidable suffering will determine your state of happiness or fulfillment. And for Viktor Frankl - who spent years in the holocaust camps - his attitude towards the unavoidable suffering literally determined whether he would live or die.

There is something greater than ourselves out there waiting for us to show up. How are you showing up? To your significant other, to your kids, to your friends, to yourself, to God?

Trust the process. Live the commitment