Rediscovering Viktor Frankl’s ‘Why’ in One of the Ten Most Influential Books in America
Isaiah, the Prophet, and Viktor Frankl Both Saw Hope and Purpose as Forces That Renew the Human Spirit
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Organizations invest money, sometimes years, refining mission statements. Done well, they aren’t slogans; they are compasses, steadying vision when volatility and uncertainty strike.
For individuals, the stakes are even higher. Without a clear sense of purpose, we risk being swept away by daily pressures, disappointments, or deeper sorrows. Yet when our goals are tied to something larger than ourselves, challenges don’t disappear, but they become bearable and even transformative.
This is an important lesson evident in today’s reading from Isaiah, written during a time of exile and despair, and directed to the multitude that questioned their faith in God. It serves as a reminder of the need for hope rooted in a steady horizon of significance, even when life feels unsteady.
Isaiah’s prophetic speech addresses people weary from exile:
Though young men faint and grow weary,
and youths stagger and fall,
They that hope in the LORD will renew their strength,
they will soar as with eagles' wings;
They will run and not grow weary,
walk and not grow faint.
Isaiah speaks beautifully of an outlook anchored in hope that empowers spiritual, psychological, and emotional stamina.
Two and a half millennia later, Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl observed the same principle at work in the Nazi concentration camps in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning (1946).
The Library of Congress has recognized Frankl’s book as one of the ten most influential books in America. It has been translated into fifty languages and has sold over 16 million copies. It is often assigned in philosophy, theology, and leadership programs worldwide and is commonly cited in Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and the World Economic Forum.
After witnessing how some survived the camps while others gave up, Frankl concluded: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how.’”[1] The book’s exploration of resilience, meaning, and human dignity in the face of unimaginable suffering is a powerful testament to the ethos of human wonder.
He referred to this as the “will to meaning.” It is the personal mission statement that empowers us to persevere with integrity, even when faced with life’s relentlessly grinding rhythms, that we all face.
Have you found your will to meaning?
Where Freud emphasized the will to pleasure, Frankl insisted that the deepest human drive is the will to meaning, a quest for purpose. For Frankl, life is about discovering a purpose that makes suffering endurable and life worth living.
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”- Viktor E. Frankl
[1] Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, trans. Ilse Lasch (Boston: Beacon Press, 2006)
I have long wrestled with the question of my purpose—the quiet, persistent “why” that echoes in the heart. For years I sought it earnestly, only to grow weary and conclude, with a certain resigned humility, that perhaps I lack the brilliance to unravel so profound a mystery.
So I surrendered the search.
Now I place my trust in a gentler hope: that when my days on this earth draw to a close, some tender revelation may await and meet me at the threshold.
And if even then no answer comes—if the veil lifts only to reveal deeper silence—I will not despair.
I will simply continue walking the path laid before me, eyes open in wonder, receiving each moment as the next chapter in a vast and unscripted adventure that was never mine to fully author, yet is entirely mine to live.
That's a beautiful reflection, better than my post, certainly in its brevity, which is sometimes more important. Thank you for your constructive comment!