Love, Ambition and Suffering

In Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl argues that meaning in life can come from three sources: from loving someone, from accomplishing some great work, or from suffering.[1] I have a hypothesis that most people are predisposed towards one of the first two sources and (ideally) end up getting plenty of all three.

For example, I've noticed that one of the primary benefits of hard work is the relationships you build along the way. Inversely, you can indirectly have a large impact on the world by touching the lives of those around you. (And suffering will happen no matter what you do).

It's ok to be either kind of person (or some other kind of person, since generalizations like these don't fit everyone well). There is a misguided form of ambition that doesn't yield good results, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't dream big if you want to.

There are probably other implications that you could tease out. In general I think it's helpful to understand what kind of person you are and accept those who are different.




Notes

[1] There's some controversy about Frankl, but regardless I think it's a useful way to frame the problem. Paul Graham framed it basically this way in a tweet.

Published 16 Mar 2019

I write an occasional newsletter
about my work and ideas.

RSS feed · Archive

𝔗𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔰𝔦𝔱𝔢 𝔦𝔰 𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔱𝔢𝔠𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔟𝔶 𝔯𝔢𝔠𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔠𝔥𝔞 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔊𝔬𝔬𝔤𝔩𝔢 𝔓𝔯𝔦𝔳𝔞𝔠𝔶 𝔓𝔬𝔩𝔦𝔠𝔶 𝔞𝔫𝔡 𝔗𝔢𝔯𝔪𝔰 𝔬𝔣 𝔖𝔢𝔯𝔳𝔦𝔠𝔢 𝔞𝔭𝔭𝔩𝔶.