Over 16 million copies sold worldwide 'Every human being should read this book' Simon Sinek One of the outstanding classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in our own lives.
This collection of gem-like reflections distills the most popular messages theauthor has delivered, along with responses from his hearers. He describes the basic routes by which people travel on their mystical quests, including controlled breathing, quiet sitting and reciting mantras--methods that lead to states of "non-thinking" that may produce lucid, even life-transforming insights.
Who among us has not at some point asked, what is the meaning of life?' In this extraordinary book, an eminent social scientist looks at the big picture and explores what empirical studies from diverse fields tell us about the human condition. MEANINGS OF LIFE draws together evidence from psychology, history, anthropology, and sociology, integrating copious research findings into a clear and conclusive discussion of how people attempt to make sense of their lives. In a lively and accessible style, emphasizing facts over theories, Baumeister explores why people desire meaning in their lives, how these meanings function, what forms they take, and what happens when life loses meaning. It is the most comprehensive examination of the topic to date.
Viktor Frankl, bestselling author of Man's Search for Meaning, explains the psychological tools that enabled him to survive the Holocaust Viktor Frankl is known to millions as the author of Man's Search for Meaning, his harrowing Holocaust memoir. In this book, he goes more deeply into the ways of thinking that enabled him to survive imprisonment in a concentration camp and to find meaning in life in spite of all the odds. He expands upon his groundbreaking ideas and searches for answers about life, death, faith and suffering. Believing that there is much more to our existence than meets the eye, he says: 'No one will be able to make us believe that man is a sublimated animal once we can show that within him there is a repressed angel.' In Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning, Frankl explores our sometimes unconscious desire for inspiration or revelation. He explains how we can create meaning for ourselves and, ultimately, he reveals how life has more to offer us than we could ever imagine.
In our age of depersonalization, Frankl teaches the value of living to the fullest. Upon his death in 1997, Viktor E. Frankl was lauded as one of the most influential thinkers of our time. The Unheard Cry for Meaning marked his return to the humanism that made Man's Search for Meaning a bestseller around the world. In these selected essays, written between 1947 and 1977, Dr. Frankl illustrates the vital importance of the human dimension in psychotherapy. Using a wide range of subjects—including sex, morality, modern literature, competitive athletics, and philosophy—he raises a lone voice against the pseudo-humanism that has invaded popular psychology and psychoanalysis. By exploring mankind's remarkable qualities, he brilliantly celebrates each individual's unique potential, while preserving the invaluable traditions of both Freudian analysis and behaviorism.
If you take a walk in the woods on a winter morning and see the sun sparkle and glimmer in the newly fallen snow, or if you sit one morning on the pier with the one you love and watch the glowing sun rise above the sea, you may suddenly think that there are far too few moments like these in your life. Some people experience several high points like these throughout life, when the earth somehow spins the right way around just for a brief moment. You cannot force these experiences to happen, but invite them by making an effort in your life and doing your utmost in every situation. In order to do so, you need to understand the importance of making the right decision in even the smallest of situations. Self-discipline and personal energy will give you control of your life. When you sincerely do your utmost to be in control of your life, you can catch a glimpse of a major obstacle to success: your inability to understand life, the world around you and yourself.
As is painfully evident from the reports of school shootings, gang violence, dysfunctional family life, and from statistics on adolescent suicide, many teens live troubled lives. Even those who live a normal life still face the challenges adults face, but teens are also engaged in establishing independence and finding their identity. However, few adolescents have the same resources as adults for surviving life challenges. Building from the idea that story is a powerful source of meaning, particularly those stories that resonate with our own lives, this book suggests that the stories of other young adults offer a resource yet to be fully tapped. Adolescents in the Search for Meaning begins from the perspective of young adults by sharing the results of a survey of over 1400 teens and also includes the insights of authors of Young Adult Literature. The book presents over 120 novels that teens have identified as meaningful as well as books recommended by YA authors and experts in the field of YA literature. For any teacher, librarian, parent or counselor wanting to reach young adults, this book is ideal.
Designed to guide and inspire those who may be in search of answers, this book of thoughtful quotes from eminent people around the globe, and touching photographs associated to each quote, offers insight into the deepest questions about life meaning for human kind.
This timely book expands on Viktor Frankl's seminal Man's Search for Meaning, examining the book's concepts in depth and widening the market for them by introducing an entirely new way to look at work and the workplace. Alex Pattakos, a former colleague of Frankl's, brings the search for meaning at work within the grasp of every reader using simple, straightforward language. The author distills Frankl's ideas into seven core principles: Exercise the freedom to choose your attitude; Realize your will to meaning; Detect the meaning of life's moments; Don't work against yourself; Look at yourself from a distance; Shift your focus of attention; and Extend beyond yourself. By demonstrating how Dr. Frankl's key principles can be applied to all kinds of work situations, Prisoners of Our Thoughts opens up new opportunities for finding personal meaning and living an authentic work life.
In The Search for Meaning: A Short History, Dennis Ford explores eight approaches human beings have pursued over time to invest life with meaning and to infuse order into a seemingly chaotic universe. These include myth, philosophy, science, postmodernism, pragmatism, archetypal psychology, metaphysics, and naturalism. In engaging, companionable prose, Ford boils down these systems to their bare essentials, showing the difference between viewing the world from a religious point of view and that of a naturalist, and comparing a scientific worldview to a philosophical one. Ford investigates the contributions of the Greeks, Kant, and William James, and brings the discussion up to date with contemporary thinkers. He proffers the refreshing idea that in today's world, the answers provided by traditional religions to increasingly difficult questions have lost their currency for many and that the reductive or rationalist answers provided by science and postmodernism are themselves rife with unexamined assumptions.
