“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. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run – in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.” — Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Preface to the 1992 Edition)
This is what Viktor Frankl, the founder of logotherapy and existential analysis, advised his students. He is the author of “Man’s Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy”, the book in which he recounts his experiences in a concentration camp during World War II.
At first, Frankl intended to publish the book anonymously, guided by a sense of responsibility and the hope that it might be of help to people prone to despair. His friends, however, persuaded him to put his name to it. In time, the book became a bestseller, going through almost one hundred editions in English and appearing in twenty-one other languages as well. Frankl himself was deeply surprised that it was precisely this book, rather than his others, that achieved such wide popularity.
The remark quoted above reflects both this fact and many of his observations throughout life. I, too, believe that happiness cannot be a goal in itself; it is a by-product of what we do when we live in harmony with the meaning of our lives. Even if this does not bring us outward success or conventional happiness, it gives rise to a deep sense of fulfilment, which is the true measure of a life fully lived.
So, what is the meaning of your life? What is it that is greater than you, and to which you can devote yourself?
Kameliya Hadzhiyska
