Life and Meaning: Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning
Author: Victor Frankl

Man's Search for Meaning is a classic biography, psychology, philosophical and spiritual book. Frankl was a prominent psychologist in Austria during the 1930's and was a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps. The  professional framework and first hand account that Frankl provides is not only insightful when it comes to psychological and spiritual ideas, but humbling and inspirational to the human spirit.

As the book title implies, he focuses much of his book MEANING. As Nietzsche said, "He who has a Why to live for, can bear almost any How". I clipped these rather insightful passages in the beginning of his book:

Life is not primarily a  quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as  Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning.

I can agree with the statement that life is a quest for meaning but I think it's important to acknowledge that society has perverted 'meaning' to be represented as pleasure and power. So in my opinion, you can't really blame those who define their existence with the pursuit of pleasure and power because society brainwashes individuals and builds social constructs to support and encourage this pursuit. This leads into his next point, defining meaning. 

Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something  significant), in love (caring for another person), and  in courage during difficult times.

Quite bold to categorize all of humanity's perception of meaning into three broad categories but this fits neatly with Frankl's most powerful point in his book: 

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you.