Book review
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’ll be honest — when I first picked up The Will to Meaning, I thought I’d made a mistake. Coming off of warm, accessible reads by the likes of Melinda French Gates or Roxie Nafousi, diving into Viktor Frankl’s world felt like being thrown into the deep end.
Heavy terms. Dense ideas. Name-drops like Freud, Jung, and Adler in every other sentence. I had to reread paragraphs. More than once.
But I kept going. Something told me this wasn’t a book you read — it was a book you wrestled with. And slowly, quietly, it began to unfold.
At First, It Felt Like Work
The first few chapters were tough. Frankl is writing not just as a psychiatrist but as someone who's survived unthinkable trauma — the Holocaust — and lived to find meaning in it. He doesn’t spoon-feed you, his ideas; he expects you to meet him halfway. And that’s exactly what I had to do.
However, somewhere along the way, technical language gave way to something deeply personal. Frankl wasn’t trying to impress — he was trying to equip us. He was saying, life will hurt. You will suffer. But that doesn’t mean it has to be meaningless.
What Hit Home for Me
There were two techniques in particular that felt especially relevant — not just in theory, but in how I live my everyday life:
Dereflection: This one stuck with me. Instead of obsessing over a problem or overthinking myself into a spiral (been there…), you redirect your focus to something outside yourself. It reminded me of those days when helping a friend through something unexpectedly helped me through my own mess.
Paradoxical Intention: This one's a bit cheeky. Basically, when you're scared of something happening, you intentionally exaggerate it — like saying, “I hope I stutter during this speech” instead of fearing it. It flips the fear on its head and, somehow, shrinks it down to size. It made me laugh — but it also made me think about how often fear loses its power once we stop fighting it.
Frankl Doesn’t Promise Quick Fixes
That’s probably what I respected most about this book: there’s no promise of overnight transformation. Frankl isn’t offering affirmations or five-step plans to happiness. Instead, he asks the kind of questions that make you pause and sit with discomfort.
- What gives your life meaning?
- How do you respond to suffering you can’t escape?
- What kind of person do you choose to be — even when life stops being fair?
These aren’t questions you can answer on a whim. But they’re the kind that stay with you. At least, they stayed with me.
Applying It to Real Life
Frankl’s examples aren’t theoretical. They’re about real people: someone facing terminal illness, someone grieving deeply, someone stuck in a cycle of despair. He doesn’t sugar-coat it — life can be brutal — but he still dares to ask what meaning might look like even there.
One part that really resonated with me was the idea that meaning isn’t something “out there” you have to go find. It’s something you create — through your choices, your attitude, the way you show up for others. Even in grief. Even in failure. Even in silence.
What Stayed With Me
Frankl lived through the Holocaust. He lost his family. He survived the camps. And still, he came out of it saying that even in the worst conditions imaginable, people can choose their response. That choice, he says, is where our dignity lives. That’s powerful.
There’s a quote from him that I’ve scribbled onto a sticky note near my desk:
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
It’s not a light, feel-good quote. It’s a challenge — but also a comfort. It reminds me that no matter what’s happening around me, I can still find something worth holding on to. Something worth living for.
This book wasn’t easy. But it was worth every slow, underlined, highlighted page. If you’re in a season of asking big questions — or even if you’re just tired of the same surface-level answers — The Will to Meaning might be what you need. It won’t give you a map. But it will remind you that the compass is already in your hands.
* The Will to Meaning can be obtained at Exclusive Books.