The Lemon Fool

I have just finished Man’s search for meaning by Viktor Frankl who ranks along with Freud, Jung and Adler as one of the giants of psychiatry. As a Jew, he spent much of WW2 in various concentration camps including Auschwitz (he lost his wife, father, mother and brother), and this informed much of his approach to helping those who are themselves suffering or find no meaning in life.

His message is:

a. Don’t look for ‘the meaning of life’; look for meaning in your own life by:
- trying to grow your life in meaning (e.g. can your suffering reduce someone else’s suffering?) even in dire situations that cannot be changed
- creating a good work or doing a good deed
- experiencing something (goodness, beauty, nature, culture) or someone (love)

b. The old have fewer further opportunities than the young but have realities in the past: potentialities they have actualised, meanings fulfilled, values realised, and nothing and nobody can remove them

c. Happiness cannot be pursued – it must ensue.

FYI, I mentioned him recently myself, here:

viewtopic.php?p=97283#p97283

He's probably known as a philosopher as much as a psychologist. In some ways he helped recapture the practical and pragmatic aspects of philosophy, after it spent a long time being mired in semantics and analysis paralysis, courtesy mostly of the British school of thought that prevailed for much of the 20th century.

In fact, you might cross post it here:

viewforum.php?f=85