The Inner Compass. What Is The Meaning Of Life?

According to studies carried out in the private offices of psychotherapists, and in public hospital offices and services that provide assistance in psychological disorders, a third of the people who consult for help, do so due to the lack of meaning in their lives.

It was Viktor Frankl, father of logotherapy, who first drew the attention of therapists to the meaning of life, someone who personally had not had a simple existence or devoid of dramatic situations. Frankl was captured by the Nazis during World War II and held in a concentration camp for his Jewish status.

Living with horror, Viktor Frankl discovered that people need a purpose, even a tiny one, to maintain their will to live.

There, in the death camps, this Viennese doctor observed that the prisoners who survived were, almost exclusively, those who in one way or another had managed to find a purpose in their restricted and miserable living conditions within the camp.

Building a path, a future

It was in captivity that he decided to apply that discovery; He challenged himself to relate the experience of the prisoners and the importance of having a reason to live.

Constructing that story gave him a meaning to his existence and led him, according to his own words, even to exchange half of the little bread he received for a torn sheet where he could continue with his annotations for his research.

Viktor Frankl explains in Man’s Search for Meaning (Herder) that while the camp guards controlled all aspects of the life and death of the prisoners – including their humiliation, torture or murder – there was something they were incapable of doing. control: the reaction of each prisoner. His survival depended on this answer – says the author.

A meaning can always be found in life, in all conditions and under any circumstance, although it is surely much easier in our affluent way of life than in the Nazi death camps, especially since we will use this purpose to embed in it a more everyday life. full and happy, and not just survival.

To determine what the meaning of our life is, it is necessary to clearly establish the difference between a goal and a course, between the objective and the meaning.

These are concepts that, although they are elementary, often go unnoticed or are confused.

A story not to be missed

Trying to explain this difference in a more graphic way, I invented the following story a few years ago that none of the patients who ever came to my office could avoid hearing …

A man leaves the port of his city, say Buenos Aires, to sail with his sailboat on a beautiful autumn day. As he sets sail alone and it is a short excursion, he does not bring food, no locator, or radio.

Suddenly, a terrible storm surprises him and takes him out to sea. Balanced and punished by the wind and pouring rain, the man cannot even realize where his ship is being dragged. For fear of slipping on the deck, she drops anchor and takes refuge in her cabin until the storm subsides a bit.

The sailor realizes that the storm has driven him far from shore and that he does not know where he is

When the wind calms down, the man comes out of his shelter and walks the sailboat from bow to stern. He checks every inch of his ship and is happy to confirm that it is whole. The engine starts, the hull is healthy, the sails intact, the potable water has not spilled and the rudder works as usual.

The navigator smiles and looks up with the intention of returning to port. He looks in all directions, but all he sees is water.

He realizes that the storm has driven him far from shore and that he does not know where he is. Become aware that you have been lost. He begins to despair and, at one point, he complains aloud, shouting:

-I’m lost. That awful!

And he remembers, as sometimes unfortunately happens only in those moments, that he is a man brought up in the faith, and looking at the sky, he says aloud:

“My God, I’m lost.” Help me, my God, I’m lost …

Believe it or not, a miracle takes place: the sky opens – a diaphanous circle appears among the clouds – and a ray of sunlight illuminates the sailboat almost exclusively, as in the movies.

Mysteriously, a deep voice (God?) Is heard that answers:

-What’s wrong?

The man kneels before the miracle and weepingly implores:

“I’m lost, I don’t know where I am, enlighten me, Lord.” Where am I Lord? Where I am?

Suddenly, the voice, responding to that desperate call, says:

“Right now you’re at 38 degrees South latitude and 29 degrees West longitude.

“Thank you, thank you …” says the man more than excited about what happened.

But after the first joy, he thinks for a while and becomes uneasy, resuming his complaint:

“I’m lost, my God!” I’m lost!

The man realizes that knowing where one is does not stop being lost.

-What’s the matter? Says the heavenly voice again.

“It’s just that knowing where I am isn’t really enough for me.” What has got me lost is that I don’t know where I’m going.

“You’re going back to Buenos Aires,” he replied.

Anxiously and before the sky begins to close, the man yells:

“I’m lost, my God, I’m desperate!”

The voice speaks to him for the third time:

“Now what happens ?!

—It is that, knowing where I am and where I want to go, I am still as lost as before, because I don’t even know where that port is.

The heavenly voice begins to say:

—Buenos Aires is at 38 degrees South latitude and 29 degrees …

-No no no! –The man interrupts.

“But you asked me …” the voice replies.

“Yes God … I know what I asked you, but do you know what happens?” That I have just realized that it is not enough to know where I am and where I am going. I need to know which is the way to get there. Please, my God, please …

At that moment, a parchment tied with a celestial ribbon falls from the sky. The man spreads the paper and finds a map clearly drawn.

Above and to the left there is a little red dot that turns on and off with a sign that says: “You are here”.

Below right a blue point where it reads: “Buenos Aires”.

And in a phosphorescent yellow tone, a line, surrounded by several circles with indications: whirlpool, reefs, pebbles, strong wind from here and there …

It is a route that connects those points: the way to follow to reach your destination.

The man, finally, is happy. He kneels, crosses himself and says:

“Thank you, my God, thank you.”

The sailor lifts anchor, stretches the sail, looks at the map, looks everywhere … and shouts once more:

“I’m lost, I’m still lost!”

Of course. Of course, the poor man is still lost: all he sees is water and all the information is not enough for him because he does not know where he should lead his journey.

Find the course

Once again, knowing where you are and where you are going, having a map with all the precise details of the environment, surely you will not know in which direction to travel if you cannot set your course. But as we said, the course is one thing and the goal is another.

• The goal is the point of arrival.
• The way is how to get there.
• The course is the direction, the sense. And it is the only data that allows you to assume that you are not lost in the vastness of the ocean.

If one understands the difference between the course and the goal, one begins to understand many other things, including the definition of happiness, which I repeat so many times:

Happiness is the serenity of knowing that you are on the right path, the inner tranquility of someone who knows where your life is heading.

In life, goals are like ports to reach and knowing the way is a resource to advance on the map that experience provides.

Let no one doubt the importance of knowing where it is; But, without direction, there is no direction, and direction can only be provided by the meaning you decide to give to your existence.