BOOK REVIEW:- MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

Man's search for meaning is an autobiography book by Victor Frankl. It is a best-selling motivational book. It is considered as one of the world's top read books.

*About Author: -
Victor Frankl was a psychotherapist. He wrote unknowingly the best-selling books.
Man's search for meaning is about his life experiences-based book, autobiography. Dr. Frankl also introduced an idea of logotherapy, because of that he is well-known famous in the field of psychology and philosophy as well.


*About Book: -
Man's search for meaning is the story of a prisoner. This prisoner is also the narrator, who tells the story. He not only tells his story but also highlights the brutal events. Even this book reflects the lives of everyone who suffered in the Holocaust and the Second World War.

Poor men with their families were taken to the concentration camps. Because of their different religions, especially Jews. They were treated like animals. No humanity for them. Burning alive and killing them. Where humans like them have no rights at all.

At first, prisoners were unaware of the place (Auschwitz) where they were taken to. Not far they ever before think of such brutality to face in life.
Cruel Capos have beaten them and shouted on them if they only stop working for minutes. Prisoners worked all day, not enough food, no good clothes, not even beds to sleep. Many prisoners slept in tiny rooms together with difficulty.

They were transported from one place to another place because they were sold to private companies. Prisoners were in long jail, they didn't even know about their future nor they had any goals.

Sunrises, they started working till sunsets. Every night, they thought finally one more day is over. However, their only question was, when will they be free? "Free from sufferings" the writer quoted.

Prisoners became ill. They filled trucks with ill people and threw them into gas chambers. Burn them alive, because they were ill who could not work hard that much. Such cruel things urged prisoners to lose hope. That's also the reason, they were dying in huge numbers.

Narrator quoting Nietzsche, "He who has a WHY to live can bear with almost any How."

It is a heart-wrenching book, because cruelty, bitterness, terrible punishments, an unlimited number of dying innocent prisoners melt the reader's heart. The reader will feel goosebumps just thinking of the brutality that humans strict on other humans.

This book is full of motivation. We can learn so much from this book. How to live a life and be grateful for things. losing everything but still having the power of decision making.
For example:- After facing bitter and cruel conditions how that poor woman, in camp, saw the tree of hope, eternity.


Dr. Frankl, the prisoner, got chances to run from camp but, because of his prisoner friend he didn't run away. Choose to stay there with the prisoners because he found something very essential. In normal life, we might not, which he found even under terrible pressure and brutal conditions. That is inside peace, Spirituality. This book is about the spiritual search of a man.

Later in the book, the War ended, only a few remaining prisoners were free after all. But what they learned from their experiences nobody could take from them. Their lives, observations, sufferings, and pain changed them into different persons. They found out the meaning of their lives.

In last, Dr. Frankal found out what a man needs to live life and why he searches for meaning. He found out all the answers to his questions. He quoted other best writers' quotations in his book to prove his points.

Dr. Frankel, as a prisoner and psychotherapist, examined every event deeper.

Therefore the book is full of mourning echoes, only a true reader can hear and understand those. How they survived, had hope in such bad situations that looks impossible for us to bear. And they got success, in the end, to find out the meaning in life.

"In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment, it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice."

Dr. Frankl wrote this book to answer the question; How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?
He wisely answered and tried to show the reader inside the camp life and normal outside life differences.

Grateful for the things we have. Hope is all we must-have for living life. Happiness is everyone searching for, pain that is sweet between way to get real happiness.

"Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue."

I would recommend this book to everyone. Read and see what you feel. What change it brings into you. Have you found out your meaning of life?

It would be a great tragedy that people who suffered and wrote such books, after facing challenges and bad conditions, for us to learn from them, find out the meaning in our lives, and we still do not read their books.