Lesson for the Day: Being for others; doing for others; going out of oneself to others; unselfish service for others: Dr. Frankl calls that “self-transcendence.” It gives meaning to life, fulfilling a person.
“Being human is being always directed, and pointing, to something or someone other than oneself: to a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter, a cause to serve or a person to love. Only to the extent that someone is living out this self-transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self’s actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward.”
Source: Viktor E. Frankl, The Unheard Cry for Meaning: Psychotherapy and Humanism, rev. ed. (New York, N.Y.: Washington Square Press, 1978, Washington Square Press ed. 1985), p. 38.
Timothy K. Lent's Articles, Meditations and More 