In the fall of 1944, Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl arrived at Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp responsible for killing about 1.3 million people during World War II.
Upon arrival, inmates were evaluated based on their physical capabilities. Those who were able to work were sent to the right. Those deemed unfit for labor or who could not be “used” were sent to the left. It was discovered later that those deemed “unfit,” including women, children, and elderly individuals, were led into gas chambers, where they were killed. Those “lucky” individuals sent to the right, including Frankl, were used as slave laborers. The Nazis’ goal was to utilize every last bit of muscle and energy these people had until they died of exhaustion, starvation, sickness, or suicide.
Frankl wrote about his time as a concentration camp prisoner and summarized his observations in his worldwide bestseller Man’s Search for Meaning.
Through his unique perspective as a psychologist, Frankl’s observations of concentration camp life, particularly his insights into the minds of people going through some of the most extreme suffering human beings have ever experienced, reveal the truth of how important having a purpose is to our existence.
Frankl argues that we can’t live at all without purpose. Using the concentration camp as his “living laboratory and testing ground,” Frankl found that those individuals “who knew there was a task waiting for them to fulfill were most apt to survive.” On the contrary, the individual who “saw no more sense in life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on . . . was soon lost.” Those individuals who lost sight of their purpose, their reason for living, died quickly in those extreme conditions. Purpose is what allowed camp prisoners to overcome the pain, hunger, sickness, and suffering they were experiencing. They had their eye on something else and saw that what they were enduring was their “cross to bear” at that moment.
Even outside of a concentration camp, with an aim or purpose in mind, an individual can overcome any adversity, obstacle, or difficulty. On the other hand, when someone with no aim or purpose encounters the difficulties of life, they more often struggle than those clear on theirs. Meaning and purpose can buttress you against the malevolence of life, but it has to be strong!
Frankl used the term “existential vacuum” to describe the place in one’s life or the world in general where purpose and meaning are absent. What are the symptoms of this vacuum? Anxiety, depression, insecurity, suicide, drug use, even sexual immorality. In fact, according to the medical research done by Frankl and others, “the sexual libido becomes rampant in the existential vacuum.” This sounds like the current state of things, doesn’t it?
One in eight Americans use some form of illicit drugs and that every day, 114 people in the United States die as the result of drug overdose. One in five Americans suffers from anxiety disorders, and one in five Americans takes medication for psychological and/or behavioral disorders. Hook up and the sexualization of our culture is rampant. An existential vacuum is another name for meaning crisis.
This vacuum, this place of meaninglessness and lack of purpose is not how we were created to live. This vacuum—anxiety, depression, sex, porn, drug use, and suicide—is creating a miserable hell for all of us. But I believe there is a way out of it.
Atheist philosopher Frederich Nietzsche said, “He who has a why can endure just about any how.” You are important, and you get one brief opportunity to live out the purpose assigned to you on Earth. Develop a sense of urgency. You cannot put it off or procrastinate any longer. The consequences are too severe for you and others. There has never been, there is not, and there will never be another you. It is time to discover what your specific responsibility is and how you will contribute to this whole creation.
If everything that exists is created for a certain purpose, then that means you.
Everything that you are looking for in your life comes when you begin to execute your specific role and responsibility and move along the path toward your potential. The life of joy, peace, fulfillment, and meaning can only come through this pursuit. We have seen time and time again any other way leads us down the path to misery, regret, and destruction.
Whatever it is we call God created you to contribute is some way toward this whole creative plan. The purpose of your life is to move the needle, even if ever so slightly, in moving towards a little more heaven on Earth. Or at least not to contribute to more hell. Now we need to find out what that looks like practically, and implement it into the real world.