Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything

by Viktor E. Frankl

death is a meaningful part of life, just like human suffering. Both do not rob the existence of human beings of meaning but make it meaningful in the first place.

For, let us ask ourselves, honestly and seriously, whether we would want to erase the sad experiences from our past, perhaps from our love lives, whether we would want to miss out on everything that was painful or pain inducing—then we would surely all say no. Somehow we know how much we were able to grow and mature precisely during these joyless periods of our existence.

In the first part, when we talked about the fact that the uniqueness and individuality of every human being constitutes the value of his person, and that this value must be related to a community to which this uniqueness is of value, then we were all thinking of it primarily in terms of serving the community; but now we can see that there is also a second way in which the person as a unique and individual being always comes into his own, in which the value of his personality is also realized and his personal, specific meaning of life is fulfilled: this is the way of love, or better still, of being loved.

one cannot earn love; love is not a reward, but a blessing.

For it is the nature of love that makes us see our loved one in their uniqueness and individuality.