In Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl tells the story of his experience in Nazi concentration camps. His learning led to theories on the importance of finding meaning and a reason to live. At the same time, he reminds us of how terrible humans can be to one another.
My grandfather was my first real mentor. The reason I ended up in tech is mostly due to him, and he doesn't even own a smartphone. "If you develop a skilled knowledge and a fearless attitude, life can take everything away and you'd still have enough to rebuild yourself", he used to say. This saying phrase pretty much sums up Viktor Frankl's book.
Frankl wrote Man's Search For Meaning during his years at several concentration camps in Nazi Germany. It's about human nature, coping with suffering, surviving, and, mostly, finding purpose and meaning. Yet, it's not a self-help book (nothing against them, by the way). The elements of his theory called logotherapy are great fundamentals for surviving as a founder.
If you want to read my in-depth thoughts on the book, read the review I wrote in 2015.
"There were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate."
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
