Alex Sirois

Fittingly, I am passionate about spreading "ideas worth sharing." As the late yet perpetually loved Robin Williams taught us, "No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world."

At some point all of us have asked ourselves the seemingly open ended question "What is the meaning of life"? Many answers to this elusive question have surfaced. In the academic classroom, my psychology professors taught me that Sigmund Freud believed that life was primarily a quest for pleasure, while Alfred Adler viewed life as a quest for power. With respect to both gentlemen, I disagree with both of their suggestions, instead favoring the existential ideas of Holocaust survivor and author Viktor Frankl. In his ethnography "Man's Search For Meaning," Frankl expresses his belief that life is primarily a quest for "Meaning". I love this theory in part because I believe it is universal and empirically verifiable. Each unique individual will face unique challenges throughout his or her life. But if we find true meaning in our challenges, (even in our suffering) there is nothing that we cannot overcome. As Nietzche once said "He who has a why can bear any how".

Liberal Arts