Man's Search for Meaning. Part 1

Man’s Search for Meaning. Part 1

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Yesterday, my therapist and I had a breakthrough.

Yesterday, he suggested a book!

This might not seem like that big of a deal, but when I first starting seeing him I asked if there was anything he thought I ought to read. Not that I had any intention of reading a bunch of self help tomes, but I did want him to know I was taking the process seriously enough to go to the library and check out a bunch of books that would spend the next month unopened on my night stand.

There was a problem with my plan. He didn’t want to suggest any books. Instead he wanted to take some time and see where my head was at.

Well apparently he now knows, because yesterday morning as I was leaving his office yesterday asked if I had ever read Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl.

“No, I haven’t,” I replied.

He wrote down the title on a yellow post it note, I stuck it in my wallet, and headed to my car.

I was pumped! A book! Recommended especially for me! Perhaps this would hold the key to all my earthly problems!

I was so excited to read it that I headed straight for the downtown library and walked up the stairs to the non-fiction section.

I typed the title into the computer.

904.5. I thought about writing the number down, but decided I’d be fine.

I walked to the 900 section, and as soon as I started looking, dammit, I forgot the fucking number.

Feeling like a moron, I went back to the computer and typed in the title one more time.

904.5. 904.5. 904.5. I repeated the numbers all the way down the aisle. 904.5 904.5. I walked past 904.7, 904.6, and there it was, 904.5.

Huh. Why am I in the World War II section?

Did I forget the number again? I was about to walk back to the computer for a third time, when I looked up and saw the book. Guess I was in the right section after all. I took it off the shelf. This weird place for a book on psychology, I thought as I headed to the check out.

Full disclosure: I used the self check out, and I apologize to all the librarians out there. I felt bad. I don’t want to contribute to the complete digital take over of our libraries, but there are like three self check out kiosks and only one librarian! It felt like the dye has already been cast.

I left the library and started reading on the walk to my car. I felt like a detective. What was it about what I had said that made my therapist tell me I should read this?

Huh. I soon saw why this was in the World War II section. Turns out it’s about life in a concentration camp. That wasn’t encouraging. Based on what I had said, my therapist thought my best option was to look for hope in the Holocaust.

Based on what I’ve read so far, turns out he was right.