“It’s Not What You Expect From Life, But What Life Expects From You”
Viktor Frankl’s Question That Can Change Everything
A few months ago, a friend of mine who was going through a deep struggle asked me,
“What’s the point of all this pain?”
I had no answer.
Then, a few days later, a book practically fell into my hands from the shelf.
It was Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
I didn’t know it yet, but that question would soon turn around.
Instead of asking what life should give me, I began to ask,
“What does life want from me right now?”
When life seems to offer you nothing, how do you keep going?
Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist and a Jew.
During World War II, he was sent to Auschwitz.
He lost his family, starved, was beaten, and lived face-to-face with death every day.
And yet, he survived.
How?
Not because of hope, but because of meaning.
The last of human freedoms: choosing your attitude
Frankl wrote,
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”
Inside the camp, he saw people crumble under despair.
But he also saw people share their last piece of bread, comfort others, and hold on to their dignity.
The same suffering.
The same horror.
But different choices.
Frankl realized that even in a place where everything was taken from him,
there was still one thing left:
the freedom to choose how he responded.
Life is not something you demand, it’s something you respond to
Frankl’s central idea is both simple and radical:
“The real question is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.”
This means that even when everything falls apart,
we can still choose to live as an answer to the challenges we face.
Maybe it’s not about chasing happiness or comfort.
Maybe it’s about showing courage, responsibility, or love
in the middle of pain, loss, or fear.
So where can we find meaning?
Frankl created a therapeutic method called Logotherapy,
which is centered on meaning.
According to him, meaning can be discovered in three ways:
- Through love
Being deeply connected to someone and living for them. - Through suffering
When pain is unavoidable, choosing how to face it with dignity. - Through work or responsibility
Having a purpose to fulfill, a task that only you can do.
Meaning is not something you invent.
It is something you discover, often through hardship.
Faith and Frankl: a deeper calling
As a person of Christian faith, I felt something deeper in Frankl’s words.
His idea that life asks something from us reminded me of the idea of God’s calling.
Even in pain, loss, or confusion,
there is a deeper voice asking,
“How will you respond, even now?”
Maybe meaning is not just a human desire,
but a divine invitation to live with purpose.
Now the question is yours
So let me ask you:
- What is life asking of you today?
- What kind of person is this suffering trying to shape you into?
- What responsibility or relationship is calling you to show up fully?
Maybe you can’t change your situation,
but you can still choose how to face it.
And that choice, Frankl says,
is what makes us truly human.
One final quote to hold on to:
“Suffering is unavoidable, but the meaning we give to that suffering is up to us.”
This book doesn’t offer easy comfort.
It offers something better:
a deeper way to live.
📖 Read This:
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
If your life feels empty, lost, or painful,
this book may help you find not just a way forward,
but a reason to move forward.
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