A man's search for meaning

My coach told me it’s healthy to be bored sometimes. The “problem” with being bored, though, is that you start to ponder, to reflect, to feel. Thoughts like What is actually the meaning of life? Of my life? Am I wasting it? Am I getting the most of it?

The answer is probably somewhere in between. And that is probably also completely okay.

So, I was drawn to the book “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl, the Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor, who spent almost three years in Nazi concentration camps during World War II. Viktor shares some of the horrors happening behind the camp walls, but also what happens inside the head of a person locked away not knowing if he will ever be free or be sent to the gas chambers on the next day. He shines a light on how important one's state of mind - courage, hope, meaning - is for one's survival.

The one sentence that stuck in my head after reading the book was:

You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you will feel and do about what happens to you

In my late teens, I got a tattoo on my arm: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul" (Invictus by William E. Henley). Sometimes I look at it and think it's a bit tacky. But, to this date, I believe there is a lot of truth to it. While we cannot control what happens to us, and we cannot control how people react to what we do, we can control what we do - and don't do - and how we react to whatever happens around us.

Sometimes I get struck by sadness. Sometimes because of external factors, sometimes for no apparent reason. I practice sitting with and accepting this feeling. But, this quote also helps me to remember when it's time to let go of the feeling and move on.

Back to my original question, for which Viktor provides another recommendation that stuck with me:

We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life

To me, this quote is the difference between being a victim and an owner. If we ask what the meaning of life is, we let an external factor decide. We let something out of our control determine our happiness. If life asks us about our meaning, we get to decide. We get to take the actions that give meaning to us. We get to prioritize spending time with the people that give meaning to us. We get to dream. We get to choose.

So the tattoo remains.