Man's Search for Meaning

I'm currently about half-way through Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. I think I first heard about the book in high school and it's been kicking around in the back of my brain since. I was at my parent's house last Thursday and needed a book to read while I waited for tests to be done at the hospital. A couple of bookcases have migrated into my old room sometime in the past few months with my Dad's books in tow. It was here I noticed the book and started to read.

I think the vague impression I had of the book before I started to read was that it was a book all about how to be happy in any condition. This is part of the book, but for me not the primary message. Of course, if five people read a book, that is intensely honest and personal, you'll probably end up with five different messages. Anyway, for me the message was summed up pretty well when he said

"We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life--daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual."

Connected to this idea is what he says of suffering. He explains, and what mortal would know better, that sometimes our task is to suffer, but here he notes that "his unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden." So it's not a question of why do we suffer, but rather how.