Meaning

Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning.  The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life.  Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times.  Suffering in and of itself is meaningless: we give our suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it.  At one point, Frankl writes that a person "may remain brave, dignified and unselfish, or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal." He concedes that only a few prisoners of the Nazis were able to do the former, "but even one such example is sufficeint proof that man's inner strength may raise him above his outward fate".  -- Harold S. Kushner. 

The meaning of life - 

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fufillment.  In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. 

The meaning of Suffering - 

No way is suffering necessary to find meaning.  Meaning is possible even in spite of suffering-provided, certainly, that the suffering is unavoidable.  If it were avoidable, however, the meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause, be it psychological, biological or political.  To suffer unnecessaryily is masochistic rather than heroic.  

-- Viktor E. Frankl

MAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING is such a good book which should be highly recommended.  Most people in the world are enjoying the wealth and the convenience provided by the developing science, political structure, arts and so forth.  However, not less people are not helpless, scare or feeling empty in mind...  A few people are doing the sussessful business, while happiness is far away from them in spite of the money earned... Who is the looser, the poor or the rich?  Why the poor is poorer, the rich is richer?  In front of the suffering, the feeling is the same, but, how come the painful is inevitable?  

This book would be one of the paths of meaning searching.  Yes, every one could not be replaced, there should be a mission for his existence in the world.  Suffering should be reversed while its meaning emerged.  While I shoulder the responsiblities, there would be challenges ahead, no regrets, nothing should be afraid of.