Question: Viktor Frankl flips the question around and rather than asking what we expect from life asks instead what life expects from us. Frankl’s approach to the meaning of life is interesting. I think it’s true but I wonder how any of us can answer such a question without being faced with a trauma or life-threatening situation…I know it is ultimately up to us, but do you feel there is a thread to people’s answers? And, if someone is religious, how does this response to meaning change?
Answer: At the heart of logotherapy is the concept of choice, not as a me-focused “will-to-power” but out of the belief that human beings are hard-wired for goodness. We are interested in reaching out to higher causes by way of values to fulfill and people to love.
Frankl’s assertion about what it means to be human also impacts his attitude toward life in contrast to other psychological approaches. Confronted by the givens of life, we’re not engaged in a power-struggle. We are engaged in dialogue. Life is trying to tell me something. If I believe there is a purpose to my life I will want to know what this situation can teach me and how it can help me pursue meaningful goals. My working assumption is that everything is an opportunity for doing good.
Sure, there is a difference between being cornered by pain and suffering and having an easy life. But even those who are not provoked by life often experience the vacuum of not knowing what it’s all for. If there is a common thread perhaps we can say that some are sensitive enough to be touched by events for good or for bad. They are not apathetic in the face of what happens but are moved and prompted to respond.
The religious question is an interesting one. I believe it revolves around the idea of commitment. When “fitness superhero” Jack LaLanne used to say that he hadn’t eaten any sugar for “x” number of years he meant it because he was totally committed. As Elizabeth Lukas wrote, “An optimal therapeutic outcome would mean that the patient, in being true to himself reaches a point, ‘where he could not do other than to follow his innermost calibrated conscience according to his own value standard…’ ‘A friend is one, who knows the melody of your heart and who recalls it to your memory in case you have forgotten it.’ In reference to this, it could be said that logotherapy is like such a friend.” (Logotherapy textbook, Lukas, p. 61-63)
If it’s that clear to me how important something is to me (if it is the “melody of my heart”) how can I do otherwise?
Frankl said that the difference between the religious and not religious person is that the religious person knows to whom he is responsible. Yet people like Jack LaLanne can be “religiously committed” to something that is not called religion.
What sets the religious person apart perhaps is the strength of commitment. Beyond a certain pressure point most of us have a hard time following through on the vows we silently make to ourselves. I can say I’ll never eat sugar but “one piece” of cheesecake (my favorite unhealthy dessert) won’t hurt. But if it’s not Kosher I won’t waver for an instant. There’s no guarantee what I would do if I was starving to death but the point is that the stronger the commitment the easier it is to stand up to challenges.
Secondly, the religious person naturally responds to meaning from the standpoint of dialogue with ultimate meaning. In the face of adversity the religious person still experiences pain but will interpret that pain as a message from the Almighty and will bring the pain into an intimate dialogue with God. If I believe God is bringing me a message and I’m talking to God about it, I will respond based on what I think God wants from me.
Yet logotherapy is perfectly universal and applies regardless of one’s religious beliefs. To ask what life wants from me assumes that I have an important role to play. My being here in the world matters. And that is what motivates me to answer the question.