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What Purpose Can Do for You



Viktor made the decision to pursue a life of purpose as a junior high student.

Let that sink in for a second.


Junior high...As in middle school!


I don't know about you, but my middle school self was a lot more concerned with friends, homeschool, and my cool headgear-braces combo (how's that sweet mental image?) than I was with pursuing a life of purpose. Thank goodness for the middle schoolers of the world like Viktor!


The purpose he found at that young age was to help others, specifically as a future psychologist, so that's what he pursued for the remainder of his life. He started auditing night courses for adults on the topic at age 15, had his first paper published at 18, lectured on his work and philosophy by 22, and at 25, organized free youth counseling centers in his community. At age 32, he'd opened his own practice and started treating thousands of patients.

All was going exactly to plan for Viktor.


Until it wasn't.


Viktor Frankl was a young, Jewish man living in Austria during the outbreak of World War II. By the early 1940s, he and his family weren't living the lives they'd planned; they were instead living nightmares forced upon them in concentration camps in various countries. When it was all said and done, Viktor survived four different concentration camps, losing his father, his mother, his brother, and his wife.


While I can't begin to imagine the strength of character and resilience of spirit it must've taken for him to keep going in the midst of imprisonment, persecution, and deep loss, I do know one thing about Viktor Frankl: Purpose was part of his strength.


Even when he was living without freedom, even when everything was taken from him, even when he didn't know if he would survive to see another day, Viktor lived his purpose to help others. He worked with suicidal patients imprisoned with him, even organizing prevention and care groups to help those new to the camp adjust and hold on as best they could. He finished a manuscript of his own about that time, eventually publishing it as Man's Search for Meaning, his best-selling and most well-known work.


The premise? An anxious life comes from living without meaning and purpose. Or, in his own words...


"Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose." 


The power in Viktor's words is amplified because of his circumstances. If he found purpose foundational, what is the impact of purpose we can all find?

Over the coming articles we are going to explore the benefits of what purpose can do for you - in multiple aspects of life. 




 
 
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