What could this be for?

Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist in Vienna when, in 1942, he and his family were deported by the Nazis. Over the next three years he was held in four camps, including Auschwitz. His parents, his brother and his wife all died.

In the camps, Frankl noticed that people who held on to something to live for, someone waiting for them or a task to finish, sometimes found a strength that others could not. After his liberation he wrote Man's Search for Meaning in a matter of days. It has since sold millions of copies.

Frankl went on to found logotherapy, from the Greek logos, meaning. He described three places people find meaning:

• In what you give: work, a task, something you make or do.
• In what you receive: love, a person, beauty, nature.
• In the stand you take toward suffering you can't avoid.

The third is the one for hard times, and it is easy to misread. Frankl did not say suffering is good, or that it happens for a reason. He was clear that suffering you can avoid or change should be avoided or changed. Meaning comes from how you meet what is left.

So the question shifts. "Why me?" usually has no answer. "What is this asking of me?" sometimes does: patience, courage, honesty, being there for someone.

Go gently with this, especially in fresh grief or when life feels hopeless. Meaning often only becomes clear much later, and nobody, including you, gets to hand it to someone in pain. If everything feels pointless, talk to someone you trust or a professional.

Ana's father has Alzheimer's. She drives to his house three evenings a week after work. Some days he knows her, some days he doesn't. She has done what can be done: the care plan, the doctors, the help at home. In the car she keeps asking herself, "Why is this happening to us? What did he do to deserve this?" and arrives each time already drained.