Here are my top 5 life lessons from Viktor Frankl after reading a couple of his books and watching his interviews.
This page is intended as a learning resource for educational purposes and only meant to offer an overview/introduction. Short quotes aren’t a substitute for source material, so if this page sparks your interest, explore more deeply by checking out Viktor Frankl’s books (Amazon)—especially Man’s Search for Meaning:
Top 5 Life Lessons from Viktor Frankl
1. Survival needs a ‘why’:
- “The truth is that as the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for … The question was not just survival, but there had to be a ‘why’ of survival … There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: ‘He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.’” — Viktor Frankl
2. If all else fails, your final freedom is choosing your attitude:
- “No matter the circumstance, you always have the last of the human freedoms: to choose your attitude … The ultimate freedom is always, and remains always, reserved to ourselves. That is the freedom to take a stand to whatever conditions might confront us. How we react to the unchangeable conditions is up to ourselves. In other words, if we cannot change a situation, we have always the last freedom to change our attitude to that situation.” — Viktor Frankl
3. You don’t ask the questions, life does:
- “The question can no longer be ‘What can I expect from life?’ but can now only be ‘What does life expect of me?’ … Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.” — Viktor Frankl
4. Success, happiness, and self-actualization are all byproducts/side effects:
- “Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself … The less you care for happiness, for self-actualization, and so forth—the more you give yourself and forget yourself—the more you are fully human and you become fully yourself … Self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.” — Viktor Frankl
5. Everything you do is ‘saved into reality’ for eternity:
- “In the past nothing is lost, but on the contrary, everything is stored forever. It is not annihilated by transitoriness, but on the contrary, it is becoming preserved forever. Something you have done can never be undone … What you have done has been done forever—in both a negative and a positive way—it cannot be undone. The past is a storehouse of what you have done, what you have experienced, what you have gone through—and what you have done out of all the negative and tragic aspects encountered within your life.” — Viktor Frankl
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