From “Man’s Search for Meaning: The Classic Tribute to Hope from the Holocaust” by Viktor E. Frankl
Frankl, who died in 1997 at the age of ninety-two, sought throughout his life to explain the well springs of human action, and to give them a universal application. “Man is ultimately self-determining,’ he tells us. That ability to decide is at the centre of our being: ‘Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.’ The power to choose is a power every individual can use, and which gives each individual his own personal place and space: “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfilment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.’