Nat G's Key Ideas from Man's Search for Meaning
by Viktor E. Frankl

Progress and self-improvement comes from embracing the phases of hardship and existential angst that inevitably come our way, using them to become the person you want to be. Mental health and clarity can only arise from confronting our inner tensions rather than ignoring them.

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.

The existential vacuum is a widespread phenomenon of the twentieth century. No instinct tells a person what to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do.

The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom. Many of us do not know what to do with our newly acquired free time. Such widespread phenomena as depression, aggression and addiction are not understandable unless we recognize the existential vacuum underlying them.

“Tragic optimism” means to remain optimistic in spite of the “tragic triad”, namely those aspects of human existence which may be circumscribed by (1) pain; (2) guilt; and (3) death. This optimism views human potential which at its best always allows for (1) turning suffering into a human achievement; (2) driving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better; and (3) deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action.