No One Cares How You Feel

So parenting is not always an easy job. 

But it is one full of love and helping your kids. 

Sometimes, I remember listening to my kids say that they feel this or that and seeing that it was holding them back from accomplishing their goals.  

Often, I would tell them that the only people that really care about how they feel is your mother and father–but generally-speaking, it a tough world out there, and: 

“No one [else] cares about how you feel.”

I tried to focus them–not on being cold and unfeeling–but rather on being strong inside and focusing on the tasks that need to get done. 

Sure, feelings are important, but if you are getting held back from doing what you need to do–then there are times when you need to put the feelings in abeyance and go forward. 

Overall, there is plenty of time to feel what you feel, but don’t let anger, fear, or anxiety get in the way of you accomplishing your dreams. 

In a book that I am reading by Amos Oz, “A Tale of Love and Darkness,” he writes: 

‘I want’ and ‘I don’t want’ aren’t reasons, they can only be defined as self-indulgence.

Yes, it’s a little tough love, but also it is out of true love to help the kids to be willing and determined to try their best and not get held back by anything in the pursuit of the destiny they choose to follow. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Dreaming of Zion

Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “I Dream of Zion.”

To flourish in the land of milk and honey.

To celebrate the Shabbat and holidays as in the days of old.

To revere the bravery and heroism of the defenders of Israel.

To live and worship as a Jew without discrimination, racism, and hatred.

To fulfill the promise of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Hope you enjoy and we can all one day live the dream! 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

The Anxiety Filter

What a brilliant picture of “Anxiety” by a child in Montgomery County, Maryland. 

Notice the great big letters–and all in caps–for what ANXIETY feels like. 

Anxiety is black–it’s when we are in a dark foreboding place and we can’t find our way out–it holds us back from doing what we need and like to do. 

Anxiety feels so all-enveloping and ginormous–it dwarfs us in the “I”–and we feel so small and are paralyzed, incapable of freeing ourselves from it. 

Anxiety is a cognitive and emotional bias where we see things in black and white–everything is to the extreme–and there are no greys; we tend to talk in all or nothing and our actions may mimic our extreme feelings. 

Around the anxiety, we are bordering in blood red–we are in a dangerous place–where our feelings of fear, inadequacy, and being incapable of overcoming it can lead us to do something desperate and final. 

When we are drowning in anxiety, it is like a lens or filter that clouds our vision and thinking, so we can make bad decisions, not make any decisions, or just procrastinate in order to avoid the issue and thing we are afraid of. 

We have to fight off the octopus grip of anxiety.

We have to find our courage within and from G-d.

We have to conquer our demons so we can meet our destiny head-on. 

We have a mission to fulfill in our life, and we can’t let anything get in the way. 

Fate is waiting for us to make our important contribution, so then we can be gathered to our fathers and rest in final peace. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Making A Real Difference

I saw this sign posted at an organization’s office. 

I thought it was a nice way to motivate people working there. 

“What people are saying:
You are making a difference.”

Later in the sign, it says:

“The work you do is important.”

Isn’t this really what is critical to people–that what they do is important. 

Yes, we need to earn a living and pay our bills. 

And sure, we’d like something left over to save for a rainy day. 

But our lives are more than materialism. 

We are spiritual beings inside. 

At the pinnacle, we need to know that our lives mean something!

– That we are touching people’s lives. 

– That we will be remembered for the good we did. 

– That our good deeds and words will live on. 

– That our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren (etc.) will carry the lessons and message forward. 

– That we’ve contributed in some meaningful way to the fight of good over evil in this world and the next. 

– That we’ve shown proper respect and worship to our L-rd/Maker/Sustainer. 

When we make a difference, it’s about so much more than what money can buy. 

It’s about our soul, our contribution, and even destiny.  😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Computer Luminaries

I wanted to share these photo that I took at Micro Center, a computer and electronics store, outside Washington DC. 

On the wall are these pretty awesome photos of many of the founders and inventors behind modern-day computing. 

1) Doug Englebart – the GUI and Mouse

2) Dennis Ritchie – C and Unix

3-4) Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston – Visicalc and Spreadsheets

5-6) Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard – HP 

7) Gordon Moore – Intel

8) Grace Hopper – First compiler that led to development of COBOL

9-10) Robert Khan and Vinton Cerf – TCP/IP

11) Steve Wozniak – Apple I and II

Of course, the following deserve a place of the wall of fame as well:

12) Steve Jobs – Apple

13) Bill Gates – Microsoft

14-15) Larry Paige and Sergey Brin – Google

16) Jeff Bezos – Amazon 

17) Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook

On one hand, these are people like you and I, who live, feel joy and pain, and one day die. In the end, we’re all just flesh and blood, plus a soul that is our moral compass. 

But on the other hand, G-d has given some people special gifts to pass to mankind, like a master painter, musician, inventor, or holy person, whose worldly works are as near to G-dly as perhaps we can get outside of Heaven itself.

G-d must have a plan for us as he sends us these people–or more like angels–to guide our development and our destiny. 

Whatever G-d wants from us, we’re definitely on a course to get there and that is comforting and a ray of hope for all of us. 😉

(Source Photos: Andy Blumenthal)

Body of Armor

So had some disappointments recently.

Nothing terrible (and for that I am so grateful). 

Just life happening. 

Have to fail and fail and fail {more}…in order to get to that single success. 

Along the way, sometimes it feels like arrows going through your body.

Or as someone said to Tina Fey in a movie we watched yesterday:

“Hearts and minds, the two best places to shoot someone.”

Is that funny? 

Ok, now I know that I am feeling a little down, because even that made me smirk but not fully smile. 

It’s okay.

Life is a series of peaks and valleys. 

Time to climb that next peak. 

I will do it with body armor on and solid. 

Won’t let those arrows pierce me, while I ascend.

I am trying, and learning and growing along the way.

If I am to fall, Hashem, in mercy, pick me up that I may keep doing my mission you have for me in life, so that I may ultimately prevail toward the destiny only that You know and have planned for me, for the good. 😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

There You Are

So my niece forwarded this over, and I thought it was really worth sharing…

It’s about how our lives are really a bunch of building blocks, and each thing we do contributes to the next step.

So we have to be careful all along the way to do the right thing–so we can achieve the results we want and can be proud of.

It goes like this:

“Watch you thoughts; they become words.

Watch you words; they become actions.

Watch you actions; they become habits.

Watch your habits, they become character.

Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.”

Sometimes, we ask ourselves how we got to where we are today–almost as if we are surprised–but the reality is that most of the time, we are going through our lives inch by inch and step by step in an incremental and causal fashion. 

Yes sh*t happens–bad things (and good things), and they test and challenge us and take us to the next playing level.

But for the most part, we didn’t just arrive at this moment out of the blue, but rather given what G-d has given us, we mold ourselves brick by brick….until there we are. 😉

(Thank you to Chana Rivkah Herbsman and Minna Blumenthal)

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Ten Commandments – Good News, Bad News

This was a funny joke told over in the Wall Street Journal today:

When Moses was coming down from Har Sinai, he said to the people of Israel, “I have good news and bad news.”

“The good news is I kept him down to ten.”

“The bad news is adultery stays!”

Aside from the joke, the editorial posited why there are so many Jewish comedians–from Jackie Mason to Joan Rivers, and from Jack Benny to Jerry Seinfeld?

But maybe it should’ve asked, why do all the Jewish Comedians names seem to start with a J.

Thinking this through a little more, I realized so many other Jewish comedians out there–Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Billy Crystal, Chelsea Handler, Gene Wilder, George Burns, Jack Black, Larry Fine (from the Three Stooges), Mel Brooks, Rodney Dangerfield, Seth Rogen, The Marx Brothers, Woody Allen, and so many more.

So what is it that makes the Jewish people so funny?

Ms. Wisse, the author postulates that maybe it has to do with the dichotomy of the Jewish people being historically chosen to receive the Torah and hopefully serve as good examples of G-d’s law and morality while at the same time “being targeted by some of the world’s most determined aggressors”–Oy vey! and this list is even longer than that of the comedians!

So as Ms. Wisse points out, the Jewish people are on one hand “exalted” by G-d, but attacked by the wicked among nations.

I guess that would give just about anybody a severe complex–where do I find this one in the DSM?

Up, down, rewarded, punished, chosen, reviled–can make anyone’s head spin–maybe that is why we wear Kippot (head coverings)–I was always taught it was to remember that G-d is above us and always watching and guiding us, but maybe it’s also to help us keep our heads on straight with all the mixed messages we get in the world.

People mistake what “chosen” means–they think maybe Jews think they’re better than others, but this is a mischaracterization.

I learned in Yeshiva–that chosen means we have a great burden to bear in fulfilling G-d commandments–when we do it well, things are good, but when we fail, we learn the hard way.

It’s good to be Jewish–and it would be even better, if Jews accepted themselves and each other.

None of us are perfect–some of us are more imperfect than others.

But we are still brothers and sisters.

There is a Torah, but even the most righteous among us, don’t do everything right–is anyone free from sin?

I always believed that religion is our guidepost, but as we are taught “every person is a world unto themselves” and that there is room for all of us to serve Hashem.

We each have to find the spark within and fulfill Hashem’s destiny that he has for each of us–we all have what we can give and we should do it with a pure heart. 😉

(Source Photo: here with attribution to Home Videos)

Poisons Anonymous

One of the Buddhist teachings is that there are 3 poisons in this world: greed, anger, and ignorance.

But that by turning these poisons around into generosity, compassion, and wisdom,we can create life-healing.

While this is sort of simplistic, it does point to a number of important things:

1) We can have an impact on our destiny. We can choose our direction and work towards something that is good or we can fall harmfully into some bad and destructive ways.

2) Everything has an antidote. While we may not know the antidote at the time, generally everything has its corollary or opposite and we can find healing by moving towards that.

3) The answers in life are not so far away. How much of a stretch is it to turned a clenched fist into an open hand or to quench ignorance with learning–these things are doable.

If we look at people and events at face value, it is easy as times to get angry and feel hatred at the corruption and injustices out there–but I believe, the key is to channel those feeling into something positive–into change and Tikkun Olam–“fixing the world”.

By channeling our feelings into constructive actions, then we are changing not just ourselves, but can have a broader influence–one deed at a time.

(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)

Satisfy or Suffice

How many of you feel satisfied or are you left still somehow yearning and hungry?

Living in a time and place where materialism is a competitive and daily fact of life for–high paying jobs, big houses, fast cars, Ivy league educations, exotic vacations, fashion and jewelry “statements”, elegant restaurants, and lavish parties, –it is philiosophically and practical to ask satisfy or suffice.

If we live our lives to satisfy ourselves–then we tend to a society driven by one word, and one word only–“more!”  

Our appetites for material things that satisfy our senses are like a bottomless pit–to see beauty, to feel comfortable, to taste delight, to hear endless praise and envy over what we have achieved and accomplished in life–can these cravings ever really be satisfied?

With satisfaction, one of the key issues is that no matter how much we have accumulated or attained, it irks us to no end, if someone else has just a fraction more.  This is called relative deprivation–we have everything we need, but we still feel short-changed because someone else has more. It’s infinitely hard to be satisfied knowing that, because somehow we have failed…someone else is better off materially, and our interpretation often is that they are better innately than us and thus have gone further than we can or maybe deserve more on a spiritual level–either way another’s abundance, regardless of your own successes, can still mean you are a loser!

It’s funny, coming off the Metro and watching the mobs disembark from the train and race up the escalators, even when there are not a lot of people there…first one to the top is the winner; everyone else shlumps off somehow defeated afterward.  G-d, this has become a sick society–what difference does the 2.347 seconds make?

Educationally, collecting degrees and certifications has become another hobby for many, so that if you don’t have alphabet soup before and after your name, your frowned upon as just another ignoramus out there–as if the degree makes the person.

Another example, yesterday I heard that when getting engaged/married, the chic is that it is no longer enough to give a diamond ring to the young lady, now a matching bracelet is also part of the grand bargain or else you are not “keeping up with the Jones.”

The examples go on and we can all tell them from our specific lives of the endless rat races that we endure to try and not only make ends meet, but also to compete and avoid “the shame.”

So what’s the alternative?

Instead of trying to be satisfied, we can learn to suffice–to be happy with what we are blessed with. That doesn’t mean that you don’t try to do your best in life, you do!  But rather, you work hard and invest a reasonable amount of time, effort, money to achieve a goal and then you go on without beating yourself up over what you haven’t achieved.

In short, happiness is in saying enough (or like on Passover, Dayenu!).

To suffice, part of it is learning to differentiate between what is really important and what is, in the end, trivial. How important is it that you get the NEXT whatever in your life versus can you be more innately happy spending time doing things you enjoy with the people you really love.

Suffice–learn to balance the demands and needs of your life–grow beyond the mundane; the true test of life is with you yourself–achieving your potential–not how you do relative to others.

An article in Wired (November 2011) talks to this when it asks about going out and finding a soulmate, “Do you keep searching and hope something better will come along, or do you stop searching when you find something looks pretty good?”

This article, whether addressing the many commitment phoebes out there, or those just having a hard time finding Mr./Mrs. Right–whether in terms of accepting and living with others’ flaws or just learning to stop looking for someone prettier, smarter, more successful etc.

Wired suggests developing a baseline by dating “roughly” 12 people so that you can make an informed decision of the head and heart, but this can apply to education, career, home and all areas of your life–seek what is best for you, but also realize that we are all imperfect mortals and that only the heaven is for angels.

Suffice–do your very best in life and accept yourself for who you are and meet your destiny head-on–you can achieve happiness beyond the mere materialism and superficiality that cloud our societal judgements–this to me is enlightenment.

(Source Photo: here)