Self-actualization Cannot Be Attained If It Is

Most Men In A Concentration Camp Believed That The Real Opportunities Of Life Had Passed. Yet, In Reality, There Was An Opportunity And A Challenge. One Could Make A Victory Of Those Experiences, Turning Life Into An Inner Triumph, Or One Could Ignore The Challenge And Simply Vegetate, As Did A Majority Of The Prisoners.

As The Struggle For Survival Has Subsided, The Question Has Emerged: Survival For What? Ever More People Have The Means To Live, But No Meaning To Live For.

[speaking Of His Experience In A Concentration Camp:] As We Said Before, Any Attempt To Restore A Man's Inner Strength In The Camp Had First To Succeed In Showing Him Some Future Goal...woe To Him Who Saw No More Sense In His Life, No Aim, No Purpose, And Therefore No Point In Carrying On. He Was Soon Lost.

...being Human Always Points, And Is Directed, To Something, Or Someone, Other Than Oneself—be It Meaning To Fulfill Or Another Human Being To Encounter. The More One Forgets Himself—by Giving Himself To A Cause To Serve Or Another Person To Love—the More Human He Is And The More He Actualizes Himself.... What Is Called Self-actualization Is Not An Attainable Aim At All, For The Simple Reason That The More One Would Strive For It, The More He Would Miss It. In Other Words, Self-actualization Is Possible Only As A Side-effect Of Self-transcendence.

Having Been Is Also A Kind Of Being, And Perhaps The Surest Kind.