Life and it's meaning

 "Life is nothing more than a combustion process, a process of oxidation."

http://m.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/01/theres-more-to-life-than-being-happy/266805/

As he saw in the camps, those who found meaning even in the most horrendous circumstances were far more resilient to suffering than those who did not. "Everything can be taken from a man but one thing," Frankl wrote in Man's Search for Meaning, "the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."

 "it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them"

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

"Happiness without meaning characterizes a relatively shallow, self-absorbed or even selfish life, in which things go well, needs and desire are easily satisfied, and difficult or taxing entanglements are avoided," the authors write.

Happy people get a lot of joy from receiving benefits from others while people leading meaningful lives get a lot of joy from giving to others," explained 

What sets human beings apart from animals is not the pursuit of happiness, which occurs all across the natural world, but the pursuit of meaning, which is unique to humans, according to Roy Baumeister, the lead researcher of the study and author, with John Tierney, of the recent book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Baumeister, a social 

Meaning is not only about transcending the self, but also about transcending the present moment. 

Meaning, on the other hand, is enduring. It connects the past to the present to the future. 

As Anna S. Redsand recounts in her biography of Frankl, he was at a loss for what to do, so he set out for St. Stephan's Cathedral in Vienna to clear his head. Listening to the organ music, he repeatedly asked himself, "Should I leave my parents behind?... Should I say goodbye and leave them to their fate?" Where did his responsibility lie? He was looking for a "hint from heaven."   When he returned home, he found it. A piece of marble was lying on the table. His father explained that it was from the rubble of one of the nearby synagogues that the Nazis had destroyed. The marble contained the fragment of one of the Ten Commandments -- the one about honoring your father and your mother. With that, Frankl decided to stay in Vienna and forgo whatever opportunities for safety and career advancement awaited him in the United States. He decided to put aside his individual pursuits to serve his family and, later, other inmates in the camps.

Comment: 

This story, wherever I read it, seems a perfect and elegant example of how the power of positive thinking and a caring and loving attitude can prevail over life's more negative occurrences and, more often than not, lead naturally to greater overall human happiness.

This story, wherever I read it, seems a perfect and elegant example of how the power of positive thinking and a caring and loving attitude can prevail over life's more negative occurrences and, more often than not, lead naturally to greater overall human happiness.

Aristotle had described not as the satisfaction of our desire for sensual pleasures, but a person's active pursuit of virtue or excellence,

they meant "eudaimonia," happiness achieved by fulfillment of human potential, not merely lazy contentment.

And I love the fact that everyone - the healthy, the sick, the strong, the disabled - is capable of pursuing excellence to the extent of their own limits.