VIktor Frankl offers 3 ways to find meaning in one’s life (see the first blog post on his work, Feb 5, 2020). Today I’m focussing on what he called ‘encountering someone’. This is far more than just meeting. It’s “experiencing another human being in their very uniqueness – by loving them.” *

He continues:

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of their personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless they love them. By their love they are enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, they see that which is potential in them, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by their love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities.

(Frankl, 1946 p.116)

This seems particularly apt on Valentine’s Day. However, I feel it goes much much further. For me, as for many others, there is no special someone who wants to grasp ‘the innermost core of my personality’. It can be a lonely day. The absence of red roses, however, doesn’t need to stop us from being loving. We can choose to encounter ourselves this way, and to offer this kind of love to friends and family. And we can choose to find meaning in loving our poetic lives - seeing the potential that is not yet actualized but wants to be, and enabling ourselves to actualize these potentialities.

And - we can buy ourselves roses at any time of the year!

* In all the quotes from Frankl’s book, I have changed the generic pronouns from the now-outdated he/ him / his to the more current they / them / their.