It Starts And Ends With Why

At first I learned about Victor Frankl through a quote that was featured in the book Maybe You Should Talk To Someone . Victor Frankl wrote a book about his experiences in a concentration camp during World War 2. It took a while for me learning about his book and eventually reading it. I remember seeing it displayed prominently in a Japanese bookshop in Singapore but I did not buy it then. Eventually my wife read it and she recommended it. So I bought it the last time I visited a bookshop in Malaysia during Chinese New Year and read it.

Reading through the book, there were so many sections I kept bookmarking that I would like to go back to and reread. There really are so many lines in the book that make me pause and reflect about my own life and others around me. There is this section that I would like to write down, as it also pertains to my own open questions about the future of work and the future of education, with all this AI-taking-all-ours-jobs-away narrative. The future is both exciting and scary, as with any large paradigm shift.

Victor quotes Nietzsche “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how”. And this also reminds me of a list of principles of a temple in Myanmar.

Both are referring to different things, but that the acquisition of knowledge and skills that we typically focus so much on is downstream of the bigger question of why we are doing something. How much of our lives (and upbringing) are focused on the what and how, and not enough of the why. Of course the why is also something much harder to share or teach directly. It is many times related more to our inner world. It is something that is mostly felt and even hard to observe, especially when it is so hard to pay attention these days.

I think if we can inspire our kids and future generations on the “why”s, instill a sense of curiosity and gratefulness to the world at large: they should be able to figure out their way in life, and deal with whatever life expects of them (or throws at them). Of course the question is how do we teach the “why”? I don’t have a good answer. All I can do is be a good role model as a person, a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a team mate, and a member of community. Be curious about the world, and continue to learn and improve myself, be grateful for the help I have received and hopefully give back more than I received.