Life is meaningful, period. But you’re only going to believe this if you have a task to do that feels meaningful, especially when it seems suited to who you are and seems to be a mission particularly given to you.
When you have a task to do, says Frankl, this has important psychotherapeutic value. It enables you to overcome great difficulties and makes you feel irreplaceable and unique. (The Doctor and the Soul, p. 54)
This is one of Frankl’s most compelling points. You don’t see anyone who feels he has a mission to do complaining that his life has no purpose to it. He is fulfilling a purpose all the time.
It also reveals the spectrum of a person’s value-detecting capacity. If, to that person’s mind, the task must be a grand mission, and otherwise it does not feel important enough, then he or she won’t care about being in a unique position to do it.
On the other hand, if one’s focus is on opportunities to do good, then even the smallest of values is valued, and appreciated qualitatively, not quantitatively.