Many existential philosophers theorize that all of life's circumstances and experiences add to our perception of and meaning to our lives. Victor Frankl, a psychotherapist and concentration camp survivor, developed logotherapy from his experience and based it on finding one's meaning of life as its philosophy. In his book, Man's Search for Meaning, he purports that each of us is “questioned by life,” and that each can only find the answer to life by “answering for his own life,” and that each one “can only respond by being responsible.” Ask yourself what this situation of having breast cancer is asking of you. What are you to learn from this? Has this experience enriched you in any way?

On life's journey, a disability, emotional trauma, breast cancer, or any life-threatening event that compromises our quality of life teaches us what we are destined to learn. You have to determine what life's meaning is to you. Recognizing that you have the power of choice, the gift of self-awareness, and that you are a unique and special person, can bring meaning to life. Abraham Maslow taught about self-actualization as the highest level of being once your basic needs have been met and you have come into yourself. But self-transcendence is of a higher level than self-actualization, in which one looks outside oneself to a higher purpose for being.