The Guard Who Changed How I See Everything
Hey friend,
I just finished reading Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning” at 2 AM last night.
Couldn’t sleep after.
There’s this moment in the book that broke me.
Frankl, a Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist, describes a Nazi guard who secretly gave him a piece of bread. The guard whispered, “I’ve never spoken to a prisoner before. But you seem different. You still have light in your eyes.”
Then the guard said something that haunted me:
“I envy you. You know why you suffer. I don’t even know why I inflict it.”
Sit with that for a second.
The prisoner had more freedom than the guard.
Because Frankl had chosen his response. The guard was enslaved by his role.
Here’s what Frankl taught me about meaning that changes everything:
1. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the freedom to choose one’s attitude”
In Auschwitz, Frankl watched people share their last piece of bread with others. These people had nothing. Yet they chose generosity.
Meanwhile, I complained about slow WiFi yesterday.
The gap between stimulus and response - that’s where our humanity lives. That microscopic pause where we decide who we become.
You don’t control what happens to you. You control what you do with what happens to you.
2. “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’”
Frankl noticed something strange in the camps. It wasn’t the physically strongest who survived. It was those who had a reason to survive.
One man lived for his hidden scientific manuscript. Another for his child waiting abroad. Frankl himself for the book he would write.
He realized: Despair = Suffering - Meaning
The moment your suffering has purpose, it transforms from torture into sacrifice.
This week, ask yourself: What would I still do even if I knew I would fail? That’s where your meaning lives.
3. “Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it”
Frankl calls this the “paradox of intention.” The more you chase happiness, the more it eludes you.
Happiness isn’t pursued. It ensues. It’s the byproduct of living meaningfully.
Think about it:
The best relationships happen when you stop looking
The best ideas come in the shower, not in brainstorming
The best sleep comes when you stop trying to sleep
Stop chasing happiness. Start creating meaning. Happiness will tap you on the shoulder when you’re not looking.
4. “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves”
Frankl couldn’t change being in Auschwitz. But he could change what Auschwitz meant.
He turned it into a laboratory for understanding human nature. His suffering became his research. His pain became his purpose.
What unchangeable situation are you facing? What if it’s not happening TO you, but FOR you? What if this is your curriculum, not your crisis?
5. The Three Sources of Meaning
Frankl says meaning comes from only three places:
Creating something or doing a deed (work, art, contribution) Experiencing something or encountering someone (love, beauty, truth) The attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering (choosing our response)
Notice what’s not on this list:
Success
Wealth
Fame
Comfort
You can find meaning in a concentration camp but lose it in a mansion.
The Question That Changed My Life
Frankl suggests we flip the fundamental question.
Stop asking: “What do I want from life?” Start asking: “What does life want from me?”
You’re not here to interrogate existence for meaning. Existence is interrogating you.
Every moment is asking: “What will you do with me?” Every challenge is asking: “Who will you become through me?” Every person is asking: “How will you love me?”
Your Life Is Your Answer
Here’s what destroyed me:
Frankl says we answer life’s question not through words but through actions. Your life itself is your response.
So what is your life saying?
If your days were paragraphs, what story would they tell? If your choices were votes, what would you be electing? If your life were a message, what would it communicate?
The Final Truth
After surviving hell, losing his wife, parents, and brother, after witnessing the worst of humanity, Frankl concluded:
“The salvation of man is through love and in love.”
Love is the ultimate meaning. Love is the final answer. Love is what remains.
Not soft, sentimental love. But fierce, intentional love. The love that shares bread in concentration camps. The love that sees light in seemingly dark people. The love that chooses meaning in meaninglessness.
This week, I’m trying something:
Every morning, I’m asking: “What is life asking of me today?” Every evening, I’m asking: “How did I answer?”
Not judging. Just noticing. Not performing. Just responding.
Because here’s what Frankl knew that we forget:
You’re not a tourist in existence, here to consume experiences. You’re existence itself, waking up to its own purpose.
Your meaning isn’t out there to be found. It’s in here, waiting to be created.
Through your choices. Through your love. Through your response to this one, precious, difficult life.
Even in the darkest places, especially in the darkest places, you can choose who you become.
The guard had the power. The prisoner had the freedom.
Which one are you?
With love and meaning,
Pranjal
P.S. Frankl was once asked what he thought about the pursuit of happiness in America. He said, “It’s the very pursuit that thwarts happiness. The more we make happiness a target, the more we miss.”
Then he smiled and added: “But suffering? That we’re guaranteed. The question is: Will yours have meaning?”
P.P.S. If this moved you, forward it to someone who needs to remember their freedom. Sometimes a story at the right moment changes everything.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
That space? That’s where you live. That’s where you choose. That’s where you become.