Mental health is based on a certain tension between what has already been achieved and what is yet to be achieved, or the difference between what one is and what one should become.

This tension is inherent in the human being and necessary for mental well-being.

Viktor Frankl was born in Austria in 1905 March 26th.

He grew up in Vienna, the cradle of modern psychiatry and the place where Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler received their education and made their great discoveries in the world of psychoanalysis.

Frankl had a special interest in psychiatry.

He worked in a hospital where he treated women after a suicide attempts.

In 1942, together with his family, he was sent to a concentration camp in Poland.

There he lost his parents, his wife, and all his friends. He went to the camp with a manuscript of his book, which was subsequently destroyed.

He experienced the horror of Auschwitz, lost his family and his works numerous times.

With difficulties and hardships, he managed to recreate his manuscript on scraps of paper, which he diligently kept.

In 1945 he was released along with the other survivors.

Despite all the horror of the camps, he managed to find meaning and purpose in his existence, to overcome the torture, giving them hardships a truly special meaning.

He shares this in his biographical, world-famous book "Man's Search For Meaning"

The book consists of two parts. The first describes his daily life in the camps, the despair, the deprivations, the misery, the tortures, the glimmering moments of hope and the fading spark of life in loved ones and strangers.

The second part of the book, although short, is an introduction to the therapy that he created - namely, logotherapy.

There he presents concepts from logotherapy such as the will for meaning, existential frustration, existential vacuum, noogenic neurosis, noodynamics, the meaning of life, love and suffering.

Frankl describes the story objectively, without leading the reader into labyrinths of wandering about what is fair and what is not.

"Life in the camps is rather a challenge to the capacity of the human spirit, even in the face of unspeakable cruelties, to find and maintain hope for meaning."

The theme of suffering is touched upon almost throughout the story. At times it is reminiscent of the sacrifices imposed by religion as a way to the kingdom of heaven.

The meaning Viktor Frankl puts into suffering is not the one described in the Bible. The author himself even denies suffering as a reason to find meaning. It is not a necessary condition to rediscover the essence of existence.

"Neurosis does not necessarily lead to disease states or be considered unhelpful.

Noogenic neurosis is the individual's dissatisfaction with where he is and the desire he has for where he wants to be.

At the same time, however, it is a good reason to come to the conclusion that suffering should not ultimately remain just suffering, but to give it that lofty purpose and the idea that after experiencing it, new horizons will be revealed, the spirit and the psyche , if they are strong enough and persevere, they will easily be able to recall the experience and use it as a valuable lesson in what the human spirit is capable of overcoming, testing and growing.

Whether you are useful is determined from the point of view of functioning for the benefit of society. But today's society is characterized by an achievement orientation and therefore exalts people who are successful and happy. It literally ignores the value of those who are not, and thus blurs the indisputable distinction between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of utility.

In the past, nothing was irretrievably lost, but rather the opposite – it was finally preserved and accumulated.

Certainly men tend to see only the stubble of transience, and to neglect and forget the full granaries of the past, where they have stored the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the love given, and last but not least, the sufferings through which they bravely and dignity.

What matters is making the best of any particular situation.

I consider the mistaken view dangerous that what one needs in the first place is equilibrium, that is a state without tension.

What one really needs is not a calm state, but rather striving and striving for a meaningful goal, a freely chosen task. It needs not the release of tension at all costs, but the summoning of the potential meaning waiting to be realized by it.

Most important is the responsibility we must take for our actions.

Life becomes a constant forward movement in which rest can mean stillness, but it can also mean surrender and relinquishment.

Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.

Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say! - Success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it."

That is why Viktor Frankl claims that a person does not need balance, but a constant push to keep searching for meaning, if it eludes him for a long time and slips away in everyday life.

Shared with joy

A.A.

Stob, Bulgaria