The Power of Purpose: How a Sense of Meaning Can Enhance Your Life

One of my favorite books is Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl.  If you haven’t read it, you should add it to your list. Without ruining anything about the book, it is a story of the Holocaust written by someone who survived it.  The difference in the story is that the survivor was psychologist, and he wrote it with a different understanding than the average person. He had an understanding and the sense to watch the events going on around him and studied the differences between the people that survived and those who didn’t make it out.  What he found was that those who made it viewed their surroundings differently than those who didn’t.  He found that those who saw a reason for the suffering they were enduring and looked at it as a lesson learned, were the ones that made it.  In other words, those who saw purpose in what they were going through had a greater chance to make it.  Yes, having purpose can be the difference between life and death, but it is always the difference between living a fulfilled life and being satisfied or not.  

Purpose lives in that ever-important frontal lobe and it can be the difference between finding joy and happiness or just existing.  It can be the thing that catapults you to greatness, or in the absence of purpose, can be the reason you feel stuck or unable to move forward.  That frontal lobe is what separates us from the animals and when we use it wisely, allows us to rise to the top and exceed expectations.  However when stress and anxiety win, the lack of frontal lobe efficiency can render us no better than reflexive and more animal like in our behavior.