"Frankl's Autobiography: Reading Notes on Finding Meaning in Life"

Author: Viktor E. Frankl

This confirms my childhood view of my father: a sense of justice is one of his main character traits. This sense of justice is rooted in his devout faith in God, otherwise it would be difficult to understand why he always had this phrase on his lips: "Everything is according to God's plan!"
Since life is so short, what is its meaning? In the end, the answer I have discovered through a lifelong exploration is: in a sense, it is death itself that gives life meaning. Most importantly, the brevity of life does not erase its own meaning, because the past does not mean permanent disappearance, but is preserved - everything from the past is preserved before it fades away. Everything we do, learn, and feel is stored in the "past", for anyone, for anyone.
Perhaps it can be called deep thinking, or to put it nicely, Socratic self-reflection. Anyway, when I was a child, every morning after breakfast in bed - or more precisely, after drinking coffee, I would spend a few minutes contemplating the meaning of life, especially the meaning of the day ahead, or more precisely, the meaning of the day for me.
So, even if it's just a brief comment at a meeting, I would prepare my speech seriously and take notes; if it's a speech in front of thousands of people, I would carefully prepare the script, outline, and treat it as if it were a discussion with a dozen people.
I try to complete everything as early as possible and never leave it until the last minute. This way, when I have a lot of things to handle, I don't have to worry about not being able to complete the tasks while working hard. And the third principle is: not only do things early, but also prioritize the troublesome tasks, in other words: get them done early.
I always remember the good in others and forget the bad.
When you encounter any hardship, kneel down (of course, in your mind) and pray to God, and you will not encounter anything worse in the years to come.
"Ignore everything and applaud every trivial matter." Yes, we need to see the positive side, at least those who want to live an artistic life need to.
Humorous words not only make the atmosphere more relaxed during speeches, but also weaken the opponent's position in the subsequent free discussion, achieving the effect of a small force moving a large object.
If you want to talk about a person's character and qualities, you have to mention their hobbies.
It can be said that almost all important decisions in my life were made when I was climbing alone.
If you delve deep enough into a hobby, you are no longer an ignorant outsider, but an expert in that field.
As for those amateur hobbies that are far from professional standards, I also do them with great enthusiasm, without any shyness.
Nothing is more disgusting to him than so-called mature rationality (here I am referring to the practice of blindly borrowing the opinions of predecessors without thinking).
There is only one power, the power to save; there is only one honor, the honor of helping others.
We should not actively ask what the meaning of life is, because we ourselves are the subject of answering this question, that is to say, we ourselves are the ones who must answer the question posed by life, and we must take responsibility for our own existence. Only in this way can we answer this question about life.
The ultimate meaning of life is beyond our understanding, and I call it "super-meaning" (Übersinn). We can only believe in it, and we must believe in it; in fact, each of us has been believing in it all the time, just without realizing it.
Everything a person encounters has an ultimate meaning, which is the super-meaning, but we cannot understand and know this super-meaning, we can only believe in it.
In 1929, I proposed the idea of distinguishing three different values, which are the three ways to give meaning to our lives - from birth to the last moment of life, until the last breath is exhaled. Specifically, they are: our actions, the works we create, and our experiences, encounters, and love.
I respect a person's decision to end their own life, but I also hope that people can respect my principle, which is to do my best to save and help others.
Similarly, some people claim that they would rather go to a concentration camp than become a Nazi lackey. This statement is correct, but only those who have proven themselves through their actions have the right to say it, and those who have long ago fled abroad to live a comfortable life should not say it. After all the dust settles, it is easy to criticize the actions of others.
Perfection does not mean that there is nothing more to add, but that nothing more can be taken away.
The true masters I admire without exception are generous and compassionate. Although they have the power and qualifications to criticize me, they always overlook the shortcomings of my research and try to find something positive to affirm me.
"Man's Search for Meaning"
I say this to explain my view on money. I am not particularly interested in money itself. We need money, but the true meaning of having money is that we can do what we want without worrying about money.
If we cannot obtain an absolute truth, then we must be satisfied with the mutual correction of various relative truths, and have the courage to face partiality. In the field of psychotherapy, we can and must move towards some kind of partiality in the intertwined and complex multiple melodies, and be aware of this partiality.
Inspiring patients to discover the meaning of life is the core of logotherapy.
Frankl believes that the most important essence of human existence is "responsibility", so in meaning therapy, patients should take responsibility for their own judgments, and the doctor's values should not be imposed on the patients. The ways to discover meaning are: (1) creation, work; (2) recognizing value: discovering the meaning of life through experiences such as the nature of work, culture, love, etc.; (3) suffering: when suffering is found to have meaning, it is no longer suffering, through understanding the meaning of life.
"Paradoxical intention" therapy allows patients to intentionally engage in events that they fear, which is generally consistent with certain techniques in Morita therapy and "paradoxical prescription" in systemic family therapy.
The reason why people crazily pursue the satisfaction of power, money, and sexual desires is because of emptiness and the frustration of the will to seek meaning. In order to avoid emptiness, people adopt various compensatory methods, such as seeking power and seeking pleasure. The sense of emptiness and urgency that exists universally in modern people is the therapeutic indication of meaning therapy. Therefore, meaning therapy has surpassed strict psychological therapy.
The theoretical premise of paradoxical intention is: in many cases, the emergence of maladaptive behavior is due to people's excessive fear of certain frightening things. This means that because he is always worried about a situation that may make him anxious, he becomes extremely terrified, to the point where he is involuntarily brought into this situation.
If a person uses this method to treat stage fright, he can say to himself before the speech: "I will try my best to feel anxious, I want to feel anxious and uneasy, I want to be nervous on stage, want to escape, wrap myself up from head to toe. I want to tremble, shiver all over, I want to be ashamed, blush, have a thick neck, I want to stutter, be incoherent." Through this paradoxical intention, a person will calm down. Ridicule fear and decide in a humorous way what you should say to yourself about fear, so that you can eliminate the negative effects that adversity may have on you and still be able to cope with it.
Sometimes, we may not be able to succeed because we try too hard. If we deal with problems more relaxed and at ease, success will be much easier. But this will also help us shift our focus from trivial matters that bother us to more meaningful values and more important things. Once we do this, we will find that it can solve problems, and we will no longer be troubled by anxiety.