What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.
Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her own life.
For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.
For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.
The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing.
The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.
When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.
Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose.
You can take away my wife, you can take away my children, you can strip me of my clothes and my freedom, but there is one thing no person can ever take away from me – and that is my freedom to choose how I will react to what happens to me!
Suffering presents us with a challenge: to find our goals and purpose in our lives that make even the worst situation worth living through.
The meaning of my life is to help others find meaning in theirs.
Man’s search for meaning is the chief motivation of his life.
Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.
In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.
As a therapist, I am a companion. I try to help people tune into their own wisdom.
The thoughts you think today determine the results you’ll see tomorrow.
The only happy people I know are the ones who are working well at something they consider important.
If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.
You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.