Man’s Search For Meaning - Part Three
For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best. - Frankl
Originally written in 1984 in the added postscript of Man’s Search for Meaning, these words ring truer today than ever before. The never-ending pessimistic state of the world continues to dominate our psyche and cloud the future of our individual lives as well as our global societies. We are responsible for how we stand against this pessimism, and our greatest tools for turning the tides of our future are Optimism, and of course discovering meaning.
Optimism and the Tragedy of Happiness
Generating optimism in the face of tragedy and suffering allows for: 1) transforming suffering into achievement and accomplishment; 2) transforming guilt into an opportunity to change yourself for the better; and 3) creating the opportunity to take responsible action in the face of life’s adversity. In other words, generating optimism fuels the recontextualization of your worldview such that you are left empowered to stand in the face of adversity.
We often mix up optimism with happiness. Optimism is a perspective and a generated choice, whereas happiness is an emotion and an outcome, it ensues. You need a reason to be happy, but you need no reason to be optimistic. What we don’t realize is we think we are in the pursuit of happiness, when in fact we are often in the pursuit of a reason to become happy. Thus your search for “feeling good” fails over and over again as you are chasing an ensuing emotion rather than generating a choice of how to be in life. Generating an optimistic perspective and successfully discovering meaning and purpose will not only render you happy but also gives you tremendous capability to deal with suffering and adversity.
However, we live in a world where we are constantly bombarded with the desire to be happy, notably through marketing, advertising, and all the other social influences. We are pressured to chase the feeling of happiness, as if our lives are meaningless unless we feel happy, and that happiness needs to come quickly and freely. You hear this from people all the time, “All I want is to be happy.” If happiness is the goal we are at the whims of ceaseless access to immediate pleasure, that we believe will cause us to feel happy and fulfilled. Realizing that happiness is an outcome of something greater can free us to truly participate in our lives.
We face a plethora of sources that can give us immediate and momentary feelings of ‘happiness.’ In other words, we live among access to quick dopamine hits that make us feel happy and distracted from our problems long enough to keep surviving in the world. When the feeling fades, you must only find another quick hit and continue to move through life in this way. The real problem with this way of living is that we never take the time and energy to really think about and pursue purpose and meaning. Consequently, we end up with feeling meaninglessness without understanding the source of our existential torment. Our pursuit of happiness continues to leave us feeling empty and lost.
Frankl shares the main cause for this feeling of meaninglessness that we experience, although oversimplified, is:
We have enough to live by but nothing to life for; we have the means but not the meaning. - Frankl
In our western society, our lives are filled with forms of luxury, leisure time and nothing to fill the void other than quick fixes of pleasure. A lot of the ‘hard work’ is already done for us, leaving us with an incredible amount of time on our hands, and we fill that time with meaningless activities and pursuits because we don’t know what else to do, and we are conditioned to be passive and “enjoy life.” By the ‘hard work’ being done for us, I mean: we don’t need to individually grow our food, we can just go to the store, or use an app on our phone and it shows up at our door, we don’t need to sow our own clothes, or get water from the river, or build shelters to weather storms…the list goes on. Without much to do to fill our free time and a desire to chase feelings of happiness, a creeping sense of meaninglessness slowly takes over us, which resonates as a deep sense of boredom. Depression, anxiety, aggression, addiction are all consequences of boredom, or rather a meaningless experience of life.
Chasing happiness is thus a dangerous proposition that can leave you in a state of meaninglessness that transcends your sense of existence. You want to feel happy but yet you feel empty. Whereas taking on an optimistic perspective in life gives you power and direction. By being optimistic, you are opening yourself up to creativity, problem solving and you begin to look at the world newly. You gain a sense of faith that there is possibility of improvement and transformation in the world. Optimism empowers you to take charge of your life and to be a contributor to the world, rather than being someone who is at the whims of their circumstances, seeking lasting pleasure, external power and brief hits of happiness to numb the sense of boredom.
In other words, being optimistic rids you of resignation and your life begins to feel meaningful, and purpose shows up all around you, waiting to be claimed.
How do we Discover Meaning?
Meaning boils down to:
Becoming aware of a possibility against the background of reality, to becoming aware of what can be done about a given situation. - Frankl
Through these three essays on Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, we’ve explored much about the power and importance of meaning and purpose in life, but how does one find meaning? A foundational step is to discover and express your spiritual freedom in life, your ability to choose how you stand up to any circumstances, and this will fuel your ability to discover your meaning in life, you will literally see meaning and purpose appearing in front of you. Frankl outlines 3 pragmatic approaches to discovering meaning and purpose: biographically, biologically and through logotherapy.
Biographical Approach
This approach is straight forward, Charlotte Buhler shares that “all we can do is study the lives of people who seem to have found their answers to the questions about what ultimately human life is about as against those who have not.” The biographical approach invites us to learn from others who have gone on to search for their own meaning and purpose in life. Whether through reading (biographies and autobiographies), personal or second source interviews, learning from others is a powerful technique for finding meaning and purpose. Start with what interests you in life and learn from those who have had success in that field. Pay attention to the “aha” moments those people experienced, as well as how they knew about what it is they wanted to do in life. Allow your research to develop organically and follow the trails of information and knowledge until you have reached your own “aha” moment. At which point intensify your efforts and implement the biographical approach into your life for the rest of your days.
With this approach, you are able to learn from those who have made mistakes, and can teach you about following your drift in life and what is possible if you do in fact discover and pursue your purpose in life. Continue to learn from others, and then be responsible and share your knowledge and learnings to others.
Biological Approach
The biological approach is far more abstract and internally driven than the biographical approach. Essentially we have genetic and epigenetic dispositions that influence how we engage with life, and also influences our meaning and purpose in life, that is completely unique to each of us. Some of us are born with an artistic disposition, or a proficiency with mathematics and problem solving, some of us grow to be abnormally tall or to have a unique voice. These unique differences can point to areas in life where we can thrive and be fulfilled. They are not prescriptive, but they can point to a certain direction. What more, if you ignore your biological dispositions, you may feel that you are struggling through life or as if you aren’t living authentically.
The biological approach does not only emphasize biological “advantages,” in fact many people who are faced with perceived disadvantages, disabilities, accidents, etc., discover a profound sense of meaning and purpose in what others may claim to be limitations. The point is to search within yourself, and discover what it is that makes you unique and to begin to manifest the uniqueness into the world.
Logotherapy Approach
This approach does not mean finding a Logotherapist and scheduling sessions together. If that is an option, by all means you should pursue it, but this approach centers on experiencing meaning through work, through love and through courage in times of suffering. Frankl notes that “experiencing is as valuable as achieving, it compensates for our one-sided emphasis on the external world of achievement at the expense of the internal world of experience. In other words, experiences in life can profoundly impact how you view yourself and your meaning in life. If you don’t know your life purpose or meaning, take on various experiences that challenge you, build relationships with people whom you wouldn’t think to, and never shy away from challenging opportunities. To many of us, our purpose in life is to experience as much as we can, to enrichen our lives with knowledge, journeys, and unique perspectives, and develop a capacity to share what we learned with the world.
Moreover, without suffering and experiencing challenges, the potential for growth is limited if not impossible. You should not suffer for the sake of suffering, but when the inevitable moments of suffering arrive, do not shy away, instead lean into the suffering as it will help you grow beyond what you know you are capable of.
Agency
It is we ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks of us, and to these questions we can respond only by being responsible for our existence. - Frankl
Agency is necessary to discover, pursue and fulfill on your meaning and purpose in life. Agency is the capacity of individuals to have power and resources to fulfill their potential. Embarking on the journey to discover, pursue and fulfill on your purpose and meaning is fundamental to your mental health and to your flourishing as a human being. To achieve personal purpose and meaning you must transcend subjective pleasures by doing something that “points and is directed to something, or someone, other than oneself…by giving yourself to a cause to serve, or to another person in love.” Self-actualization is only possible through self-transcendence.
Giving your life meaning requires you to embrace an optimistic perspective that encourages you to be present and grateful for what is happening now. It is not all about external achievements. Your approach to everything in life, from life-threatening challenges to everyday situations will help you shape the meaning of your life. It is essential to nourish your spiritual freedom through inner experiences such as embracing the value of beauty, art, poetry, literature, feeling love for family and friends, as well ass personal choices, activities, relationships, hobbies and other simple pleasures.
The choices we make must be active rather than passive. In making active choices we affirm our autonomy in the world. Humans are self-determining, what we become – within the limits of the laws of physics – we have created out of ourselves.
Meaning and purpose is a direction, not a possession. Make active choices, be spiritually free and answer the questions that life asks of you with agency.
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In a world plagued by despair, Viktor Frankl reminds us that we can always choose how to respond. By embracing optimism, not as a fleeting emotion but as a chosen perspective, we unlock the power to find meaning even in suffering. Through purposeful work, love, and courage, we transcend mere survival and move toward self-actualization. Meaning is not something we chase—it is something we generate through action, responsibility, and service to something greater than ourselves. To live meaningfully is to choose agency over apathy and to answer life’s questions with integrity, resilience, and a deep sense of purpose.