Yesterday I wrote about Viktor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning and its message that human beings could choose their way in life, in spite of any hardships. The philosophy can be summed up in a few words from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that Frankl quotes repeatedly: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” This why can come from various sources, and it does not stay the same over the course of a lifetime; its origin, Frankl says, “differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour.”

Frankl discusses three different ways that individuals go about discovering meaning in their lives. The first is by “creating a work or doing a deed.” This is usually what we think about when we hear someone talking about finding “meaning” in their life. Through creative work we lose ourselves in a greater principle or cause.

The second is more passive, a matter of “experiencing something or encountering someone” — in a word, enjoyment. This may mean contemplating the beauty of nature, or savoring the intricacies of culture, or simply loving another human being. In one of his more eloquent passages, Frankl describes love as a way of becoming aware of the “very essence” of another person, of understanding “what he can be and … what he should become,” and by doing so helping the loved one to reach his potential.

A few of us will be able to find meaning in our lives through the utilization of unique and valued talents. Some may find meaning in experiences of love, or encounters with the beauty that surrounds us. But for others there will not be those consolations. For many, even the blessings of achievement and love will be fleeting, forgotten or lost with the passage of years.

But the third path is open to all. It was the one alternative left to many of those trapped, along with Frankl, within the automaton existence of the concentration camp. Some of these prisoners had once been learned, wealthy individuals with power and prestige, others had known the love of partners and children, but in the nakedness and poverty of camp life even these seemingly intangible possessions had been stripped from them — for many, irrevocably so. What remained to these men and women was a choice. Would they give into the humiliation and terror that enveloped them, or would they choose to show courage, dignity, and compassion in spite of their surroundings?

The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worth of his sufferings or not.

This ability to conquer suffering should not be confused with masochism, Frankl emphasizes: Avoidable suffering should always be avoided. But especially in today’s more affluent, technologically sophisticated societies, there is a tendency to delude ourselves into thinking that all suffering can be avoided, and that any kind of suffering is meaningless. Frankl’s experience in the concentration camps is testimony to the contrary. “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering,” Frankl observes. “Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”

The problem is that we see suffering as destruction, a pathway to that most absolute destruction of all, death. Suffering closes off our possibilities; it degrades our most important possessions of mind and body; it saps away our potential for future life, future achievement. For a similar reason we fear old age, that most gradual form of suffering that all of us must endure. In a society in love with youthfulness, suffering and old age inspire dread not only for the difficulties they present, but also for the shame they burden us with — the shame of no longer being useful, of being contrary to the universal order of happiness.

Yet Frankl reminds us how foolish those fears are. The suffering that awaits us can be ennobling. To bear it with dignity can be our life’s greatest achievement. Why envy the youthful, then? The promises of their future potential are mere shadows, while the joys of a moment well-lived remain with us to our ends. “Usually, to be sure, man considers only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past, wherein he had salvaged once and for all his deeds, his joys and also his sufferings,” Frankl writes. “Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with. I should say having been is the surest kind of being.”

When the future is lost to us, the meaning of our lives may only then become clear. Frankl tells us the story of a young woman he met in the camps, a woman who knew she would die in the next few days.

… when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. “I am grateful fate has hit me so hard,” she told me. “In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously.” Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, “This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness.” Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. “I often talk to this tree,” she said to me. I was startled and didn’t quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. “Yes.” What did it say to her? She answered, “It said to me, ‘I am here — I am here — I am life, eternal life.’”

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen