Have you ever been through a difficult experience which nonetheless had a positive influence on your life? Why was it ultimately positive? Consider this example: I (MH) once had a student who was...

Have you ever been through a difficult experience which nonetheless had a positive influence on your life? Why was it ultimately positive?

Consider this example: I (MH) once had a student who was denied admission to law school. Bitterly disappointed, he entered a graduate programme in education instead. Years later, he contacted me to say how much he enjoyed teaching in developing countries, and how fulfilling his career was. ‘Thank heaven I wasn’t accepted to law,’ he said. ‘That would have been a disaster for me!’

In suggesting that suffering could be a possible source of meaning, Frankl was not saying that we should welcome hurt and pain, but rather that meaning truly lies in how we interpret experience. Frankl found personal meaning even while confronted with the horrors of the concentration camps; can we find meaning in the challenges that we face?