Vinny’s Top 10 Books of 2018–#3

This is my first published ranking series of books. To provide some context, I’ve read about 50 books in 2018, most of which were memoir-based or self-development in nature. I record the start and finish date of each book, as well as take copious notes with page markers for referencing. Every month, I post about 3–5 books that I am reading. Feel free to follow along and share your feedback. It’s always welcome.

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl

Categories: Psychotherapy, Logotherapy, Suffering, Mindset, Purpose, Meaning

Published: 2006

Special. Probably the best way to describe this book. For me personally, I struggle TREMENDOUSLY with finding my purpose. In doing some soul-searching (we all do it differently — I choose to read books about those who have walked similar paths and come out the hero), I kept coming up empty.

But what this book did for me is it allowed me to take a step back and frame the idea of “finding my purpose” ⁣differently. It’s difficult to describe what that really means. Perhaps the best way I can clarify that is to say it allowed me to get out of my own way.

Here are a few excerpts from the book that really made me pause and reflect:⁣

⁣“His most enduring insight is that forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose HOW you will respond to the situation. You cannot control what happens to you in life, but you can always control what you feel and do about what happens to you.” (p. x)⁣

“Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. In the long run, success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.” (p. xv)

⁣“No one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.” (p. 91)⁣

⁣“In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” (p. 113)⁣

⁣“Doesn’t the final meaning of life, too, reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death?” (p. 144)⁣

⁣My biggest takeaway was his framework behind suffering. In no way is suffering necessary to find meaning, but meaning is possible even in spite of suffering. ⁣

I don’t usually read religious books, but there’s a reason this one is in my top 3, and I have a strong feeling it will be one of few books that I revisit multiple times throughout the years to come. ⁣Link to purchase here if you’re ready to allow it to change your mind and attitude.