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THE SEARCH FOR MEANING – Find Purpose Even in Suffering · Motivational Podcast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: To live is to suffer. To survive is to find
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: meaning in the suffering. If there is a purpose in
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: and in dying. But no man can tell another what
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: this purpose is. Each must find out for himself and
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. If he succeeds,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: he will continue to grow in spite of all indignities.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: He who has a way to live, can bear with
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: almost any how, What alone remains is the last of
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: human freedoms, the ability to choose one's attitude in a
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: given set of circumstances. If someone now asked of us
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the truth of Dostoevski's statement that flatly defines man as
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: a being who can get used to anything, we would reply, yes,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a man can get used to anything. But do not
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: ask us how man search for meaning as the primary
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: motivation in his life, and not a secondary rationalization of
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: it must and can be fulfilled by him alone. Only
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: own will to meaning. There are some authors who contend
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: that meanings and values are nothing but defense mechanisms, reaction formations,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: and sublimations. But as for myself, I would not be
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: willing to live merely for the sake of my defense mechanisms,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: nor would I be ready to die merely for the
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: sake of my reaction formations. Man, however, he is able
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: to live and even to die for the sake of
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: his ideals and values. Man needs something for the sake
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: of which to live. The existential vacuum is a widespread
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: phenomenon of the twentieth century. It may be due to
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: a twofold loss which man has had to undergo since
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: he became a truly human being. At the beginning of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: in which an animal's behavior is embedded. Man has suffered
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: another loss in his more recent development, inasmuch as the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing, and
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: no instinct tells him what he has to do, and
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: no tradition tells him what he ought to do. Sometimes
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: he either wishes to do what other people do conformism,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: or he does what other people wish him to do totalitarianism.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: Now we can understand Schopenhauer when he said that mankind
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: was apparently doomed to vacillate eternally between the two extremes
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: of distress and boredom. In such widespread phenomena as depression, aggression,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: and addiction are not understandable unless we recognize the existential
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: vacuum underlying them. Moreover, there are various masks and guises
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: under which the existential vacuum appears. Sometimes, the frustrated will
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: to meaning is vic curiously compensated for by a will
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: to power, including the most primitive form of the will
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: to power, the will to money. In other cases, the
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: place of frustrated will to meaning is taken by the
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: will to pleasure. That is why existential frustration often eventuates
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: in sexual compensation. We can observe in such cases that
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the sexual libido becomes rampant in the existential vacuum. The
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: meaning of life differs from man to man, from day
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: to day, and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: is not the meaning of life in general, but rather
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: To put the question in general terms would be comparable
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: to the question posed to a chess champion, Tell me, master,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: what is the best move in the world. There simply
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: is no such thing as the best or even a
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: good move, apart from a particular situation in a game.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: The same holds for human existence. One should not search
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: for an abstract meaning of life. Every one has his
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein, he cannot be replaced,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: nor can his life be repeated. Every one's task is
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it. As
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: each situation in life represents a challenge to man and
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: presents a problem for him to solve, the question of
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: the meaning of life may actually be reversed. Ultimately, man
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: should not ask what the meaning of his life is,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: but rather he must recognize that it is he who
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: is asked. Each man is questioned by life, and he
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: can only answer to life by answering for his own life.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: To life, he can only respond by being responsible the
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: very essence of human existence. Live as if you were
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: living already for the second time, and as if you
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: had acted the first time as wrongly as you are
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: about to act now. It seems to me that there
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: is nothing which would stimulate a man's sense of responsibleness
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: more than this maxim which invites him to imagine first
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: that the present is past, and second that the past
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: may yet be changed and amended. Such a precept confronts
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: him with life's finiteness, as well as the finality of
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: what he makes out of both his life and himself.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: By declaring that man is responsible, it must actualize the
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: potential meaning of his life. I wish to stress that
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: the true meaning of life is to be discovered in
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: the world, rather than within man or his own psyching.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: Being human always points and is directed to something or
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: someone other than one's self, be it a meaning to
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: forgets himself by giving himself to a cause to serve
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: or another person to love, the more human he is
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: simple reason that the more one would strive for it,
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: the more he would miss it. In other words, self
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: actualization is possible only as a side effect of self transcendence.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: one by creating a work or doing a deed, two
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: by experiencing something or encountering someone, and three by the
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. The first, the way
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: of achievement or accomplishment, is quite obvious. The second and
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: third need further elaboration. The second way of finding a
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: meaning in life is by experiencing something such as goodness,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: truth and beauty, by experiencing nature and culture, or last
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: but not least, by experiencing another human being in his
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: very uniqueness. Love is the only way to grasp another
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: human being in the innermost core of his per personality.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: The third way of finding a meaning in life is
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: my suffering. We must never forget that we may also
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: potential at its best, which is to transform a personal
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: tragedy into a triumph, to turn one's predicament into a
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: human achievement. When we are no longer able to change
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: a situation. We are challenged to change ourselves. Suffering ceases
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: Man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: avoid pain, but rather to see a meaning in his life.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: That is why man is even ready to suffer on
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the condition to be sure that his suffering has a meaning.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic. He who
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: has a why to live can bear with almost any How,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: there are situations in which one is cut off from
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to do one's work or to enjoy one's life.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: But what never can be ruled out is the unavoidability
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: of suffering. In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: has a meaning up to the last moment, and it
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: retains this meaning literally to the end. In other words,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: life's meaning is an unconditional one, for it even includes
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the potential meaning of unavoidable suffering. He who has a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: way to live can bear with almost any hell