Living a meaningful life: five life-changing thinking modes

I have long heard that Living the Meaning of Life is a very healing psychological book, and finally I have time to finish reading this classic. Reading is often shocked by the scenes of concentration camps. The author's exploration of how to get the meaning of life, the classic case of meaning therapy and professional and practical psychological knowledge have inspired me and made me feel reunited after a long separation.

The author of this book, the famous psychologist Victor E. frankl, is a miracle of the 20th century. During the Nazi period, as a Jew, his family was put into Auschwitz concentration camp. His parents, wife and brother all died in the gas chamber, and only he and his sister survived. Frankl not only transcended this purgatory-like pain, but also combined his own experience with academics, initiated meaning therapy, found the meaning of rebirth for people, and left the most glorious witness in the history of human nature. Frankl was full of great enthusiasm for life all his life. At the age of 67, he still began to learn to fly a plane and got a driver's license a few months later. He climbed the Alps until he was 80. This book touched millions of people in Qian Qian and was selected as one of the top ten influential books by the Library of Congress. Today, this work has sold 6.5438+0.2 million copies and has been translated into 24 languages (this passage is from Baidu entry).

Maybe everyone knows the "truth" in the book, but frankl's special experience in concentration camps and his lifelong research on meaning therapy make these theories not only a bowl of chicken soup, but also a "good medicine". Here I list five points mentioned in the book. I think if a person can get used to this mode of thinking, it will make some positive changes to your ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Maybe it will be the starting point for you to change your life. Think about how to live the meaning of life and live a wonderful life. Frankl's own life is a good testimony.

First, "people are ultimately determined by themselves, not the product of the environment."

How much of a person's life is determined by the external environment? How much is internal? You can decide for yourself.

Fatalism holds that man is only the product of biological, psychological and social conditions, or the product of the combination of heredity and environment. Frankl thinks this theory is very dangerous. As a professor of neurology and psychiatry, he is fully aware of the limitations of physical, psychological and social conditions on people. But as a survivor of four concentration camps, he also witnessed people's ability to bravely face and overcome all kinds of bad luck in the worst unimaginable situation.

Those of us who have lived in concentration camps remember those who went door to door to comfort others and gave their last piece of bread to others. There may not be many such people, but it shows that there is one thing you can't take away from people, and that is the most precious freedom. People always have the freedom to choose their attitude and behavior in any environment.

A concentration camp is an extreme place, but who is not a real "prisoner"? Everyone will be subject to a certain environment. Remember: you are not a product of the environment. You should always keep your spiritual freedom and consciousness independent, and believe that you can jump out of any environment and do what you want. Think of brother Liu Qing who studied in Fangcang Hospital during the epidemic, and think of the movie The Shawshank Redemption. "Hope is good, maybe the best in the world, and good things never die."

Of course, in the concentration camp environment, it may be more involuntary, life is fragile and hope is slim. All a prisoner can do is earn by himself and never give up on himself. As mentioned in the life-saving cheats given to frankl by prisoners in concentration camps, only by exchanging the last piece of bread for shaving utensils can you look younger, and the only way to survive is to look like you can work. Only by having a good mental outlook in prison can we get the hope of survival, and only by maintaining a positive and optimistic attitude in life can we achieve self-redemption and breakthrough.

Second, "only those who know why they are alive can survive." -Nietzsche

The meaning of frankl's life is to help others find their own meaning. He devoted his life to the study of meaning therapy. In fact, people who know the meaning of their lives and have firm beliefs are very lucky. Many people don't know what they are pursuing and what they should do all their lives. In this age of being too numb and impetuous, should we settle down and think about the meaning of life and why we live? Only when we know what we live for, only faith and mission can guide us to overcome the hardships of life and the nothingness that is more terrible than hardship.

The second half of this book is all about frankl's meaningful therapy. I believe that after reading it, you can get some ways to find the meaning of life, or at least get some inspiration.

For example, devote yourself to a certain cause and love a person: the more selfless a person is-devote yourself to a certain cause or loved one, the more he can realize his own value.

For example, experience truth, goodness and beauty, nature and culture or another person's uniqueness.

For example, using conscience to guide the direction of search, meaning therapy believes that conscience is a reminder that can point out our direction in a specific situation.

For example, recognize the essence of meaning-responsibility.

For example, there has been a fundamental change in our attitude towards life: what we expect from life is not important, but what life expects from us. Our answer is not to say and think, but to take the right action. In the end, life means accepting all the challenges and completing the tasks you should complete.

For example, imagine that you are going to say goodbye to your loved ones and the world by imagining your life at the end of your life. At that moment, when you look back on your life, what kind of life do you want? Frankl used this method in the meaning therapy, which made the mother who lost her child see the meaning of life again, saw her child's short but very meaningful life, and gained the courage and mission to live. This is a good method. Think about what you want to see in five years, 10, and maybe you will know what to do at this moment.

Maybe it's a long process to find the meaning of life, so let's try the simplest and most practical way to face the meaning cognition that frankl thinks: to be aware of some possibility in the realistic background, or, in layman's terms, to be aware of "what can be done" in a given situation. In other words, if you don't know what you want to do, then do what you should and can do now. To live is to do things.

Three. Freedom and responsibility

Frankl believes that "it is not enough to say that people have freedom. Freedom is only half the story and the truth. Freedom is the negative side of life, and the positive side is responsibility. In fact, if people cannot live responsibly, freedom will degenerate into laissez-faire. "

Freedom is an initiative to be loyal to your heart, and responsibility is a kind of weight that you passively bear in life, and it is also a kind of strength for you.

An important way to gain meaning is to realize human responsibility. Once he realizes that he is irreplaceable, he will be fully aware of his responsibilities, his responsibilities to his relatives or unfinished business, and he will never abandon his life. He knows what he exists for and how to continue to live.

Frankl's views on freedom and responsibility are really enlightening. When you are confused, think about your responsibilities, what you should be responsible for and who you should be responsible for. This is the meaning of life.

4. Success and happiness can only be by-products.

Success or happiness should not be your persistent goal. When you devote yourself wholeheartedly to a career or a thing, or love someone wholeheartedly, success and happiness will appear as by-products after investment.

This mode of thinking allows us to focus on many difficult things. For example, when I write headlines, I sometimes write a big article with great care, but the recommended amount and reading amount are pitiful, let alone "income". If I had focused on this, I would have given up. But I know in my heart that what I gain the most is the process of sorting out reading experience, constantly exporting and accumulating. If you want to achieve something, you can only concentrate on it without seeking gains or losses, because the road to struggle is often long and tortuous. When you concentrate on success, fame and making a lot of money, how can you do things well in a down-to-earth manner? It's hard for you to persist in this anxiety and anxiety, and many things come naturally inadvertently. Frankl combined with the knowledge of psychotherapy to analyze this way of thinking:

Don't just think about success-the more you want to succeed, the easier it is to fail. Success, like happiness, can be met but not sought. It is a natural product, a derivative when a person unconsciously devotes himself to a great cause, or a by-product when he contributes to others. Happiness will always come, and so will success: it is often unintentional.

The so-called self-realization does not mean some achievable goal, because the more people pursue this goal, the easier it is to lose it. In other words, self-realization may be the only by-product of self-transcendence.

Just as fear brings what you are afraid of, compulsive will makes what you expect impossible. Happiness is (and has always been) an attachment, and if it becomes an end in itself, it will be damaged.

If you want to make a person laugh, you need to give him a reason to laugh, such as telling a joke. If you make him laugh, or let him make himself laugh, he really can't laugh anyway. This behavior pattern is called "overthinking".

Optimism cannot be obtained by command. Happiness can't be forced, only the result. People must have a reason to be happy. Once they find that reason, they will naturally feel happy.

5. Keep a sense of humor in the most difficult time.

People with a sense of humor are smart and charming, but I never thought that in such an extremely difficult environment as a concentration camp, a sense of humor still plays an important role. Frankl once agreed with a prisoner in a concentration camp to make up at least one funny story every day about what happened the day after his release. In his book, he told some funny jokes they made up. The sense of humor in the concentration camp is subtle, perhaps lasting only a few seconds, but humor is a weapon for the soul to preserve itself. "Humor can make people ignore hardships and get rid of any situation, even for a few seconds, more than any other component in human nature."

Cultivating a sense of humor and looking at things with a humorous attitude are skills that people learn when they master the art of survival. A sense of humor becomes a powerful weapon between spring breeze and rain. No matter what the environment, when you can still have a sense of humor, at least at that moment you overcame boredom and fear. You're amazing. You're detached. During the epidemic, China people often show our fearlessness, confidence and strength in the face of the epidemic in a humorous way! Keeping a sense of humor in the most difficult time is a very wise and wonderful change of thinking!

What a lovely soldier in front!

To sum up, I feel that frankl is a very good "medicine", which has been boiled into "chicken soup". Let's go to school, hehe.

(The underlined parts in the text are all the original texts in the book, thank you! )