I know that many of you follow my positive posts on Facebook every morning and some of you have also read my recent posts on Mindfulness. Positivity is often looked upon as some flippant kind of behaviour, but it has served me well and it is certainly not a new concept. Some years ago I came across a book which affected me profoundly and in these recent times while we commemorate the victories of WWII seventy years ago I am reminded of it again.

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

These words are at the core of “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl, first published in 1946. In preparation for a blog post I was writing on stress, I decided to revisit this profound work and would love to see it more widely read. It is arguably one of the most influential books published since the Second World War. Frankl intended it to answer the question “How was everyday life in a concentration camp reflected in the mind of the average prisoner?” To that end, the first part of the book describes, in quite harrowing detail, Frankl’s experiences as an inmate of Auschwitz and several other concentration camps.

The second part of the book serves as an introduction to Frankl’s psychotherapeutic ideas about the search for a reason to live. Drawing on his experience as a psychologist, Frankl introduces the reader to ‘Logotherapy’, his own form of treatment. After identifying the main psychological states experienced by his fellow concentration camp inmates, Frankl came to the conclusion that the meaning of life is to be found in every moment of living and that even in the most extreme circumstances life never ceases to have meaning. Maybe Mindfulness is not as new as we like to think.

I write this simply as a review of the book and as such I necessarily avoid the whole issue of what led to the concentration camps in the first place. I do however, certainly recognise that no amount of positive mental attitude can excuse such inhuman situations get so bad in the first place. Nor do I accept that we have learned the lessons of those events.  If you ever need to have your life put into perspective, or your stressors diminished to their true unimportance, then reading this book is a must. When I am feeling really down, or overcome by life, I try and remember what he wrote; “Where there is life, there is hope”.

I found the descriptive writing of part one to be both moving and inspirational in its outlook. One startling observation made by the author was that those prisoners who died were often the ones who had surrendered to despair. The survivors, however, tended to be those who, despite immeasurable suffering and hardship, could still see a future for themselves. Their lives had meaning. Frankl says We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways:

(1) By creating a work or doing a deed.

(2) by experiencing something or encountering someone.

(3) by the attitude we take.

I urge everyone to read this book and to reflect on its wisdom. Almost Seventy years after the first publication of these ideas, psychology has moved on in leaps and bounds but Frankl’s thinking still resonates and his approach fits well with modern therapies. Whatever stress or challenges you might be facing, there are many passages within his writings that will give your problems some perspective. I will end with one of my favourites: ‘Man is ultimately self-determining. That ability to decide is at the centre of our being. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.’

T.J. Masters is a writer of m/m fiction for Dreamspinner Press. Details of his work can be seen at www.tjmasters.com

also at https://www.facebook.com/tjmasterswriter