Thought this was an incredibly beautiful photo.
Someone playing ball with an elderly lady in a wheelchair!
Too often, I think we forget or neglect the older, disabled, and disadvantaged population.
These were once the people who cared for us!
As we grow older, life can get so much harder in terms of health, disability, finances, and even loneliness.
It is so important to show compassion, kindness, and care for the people who need us, and not to forget anyone along the journey of life! 😉
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called, “Open Your Eyes to Hashem.”
G-d has a plan and a reason for everything–not only for them, but for all of us. We are all on a journey, and even if we don’t always readily see G-d, it’s part of our core faith that He is always there, He is guiding us, and that everything is for the best. Yet despite our best efforts to have faith, at times, we may feel that we don’t know what we’re doing here–why we’re at this place, at this time, or even how we got here–we may actually feel a little lost. Maybe we just can rattle off a list of “Well I did this and then that and then this other thing happened.” But exactly how we got to where we are, regardless of our best laid plans, is often a mystery to us as human beings. As I often tell students and colleagues in the planning discipline of enterprise architecture, “Man plans, and G-d laughs.”
While we may think we are going about fulfilling our plans and accomplishing our life dreams, the truth is that everything ultimately comes from G-d. He gives you the strength, the health, the family and friends as support, the talent, the opportunity, and the right thoughts in your head and the right words in your mouth to do what you do. Of course, we must do our part and the hard work to find and fulfill our mission in life and to overcome the challenges we face, but we are flesh and blood and in the bigger realm of things, messengers of G-d in fulfilling his bigger plan for all of us. If we open our eyes, we realize that wherever we end up and whatever happens to us is by His merciful decree.
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Thought this was funny at work.
One person writes:
Be Happy. Have Fun.
Another chimes in:
Ok, I will!
And finally a 3rd person writes:
Me too.
Smiley faces and all.
Never take yourself too seriously.
It’s true–try to enjoy the ride! 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
G-d gives us strength.
To battle ignorance, apathy, and evil.
To educate, persuade, influence, and fight for what’s right.
With a thick skin of battle armor.
And sword and arrows of insight, cunning, and righteousness.
To stand firm even when you feel weakened.
To find the words even when you are mocked.
To see clearly and hear distinctly even when confounded.
The soul and spirit of G-d guides you.
As you traverse a journey through life’s winding tests and challenges.
Fight heroically to repair that which is broken.
Say resolutely, I will survive! 😉
Please see new my new article in The Times of Israel called, “Moses’s Handicap.”
In truth, we are all handicapped in one way or another. One person comes from a meager financial background, another has no education, and yet another has any of a host of physical, mental, or emotional challenges. Essentially, we all have something that rightfully can hold us back. But still G-d chooses us to do His bidding. Whether it’s leading the Jews out of Egypt or standing up and doing what’s right in situations that we are confronted with every day, we are asked to go beyond our handicap.
We can’t let our handicaps prevent us from fulfilling our purpose in life–we need to meet the challenges head on with G-d’s help. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
My father used to say a very wise thing:
You can only go forward.
You can’t go back.
Often in life, I reflect on how wise this is and he was.
Sometimes, we are hesitant or afraid of what lies ahead, and we turn our heads back and reinvent history and creatively fantasize how wonderful things were before and maybe we should go back.
Like the Israelites thousands of years ago, who G-d redeemed from the servitude of Egypt, but with hundreds of years of a slave mentality, they were in a sense paralyzed with fear of going into the foreboding expanse of the desert.
“If only we had died by the L-rd’s hand in Egypt. There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted. But You have brought us out to this dessert to starve this entire assembly to death.” (Exodus 16:3)
But we know that going forward is the only way to learn, grow, and progress.
Just like the Israelites that went forward through the depths of the Red Sea on dry land and to receive the Torah on Sinai and for forty years in the desert to ultimately get to the amazing promised land of Israel.
Thank G-d, they didn’t turn back–there really was no turning back.
Back is death.
Forward is life.
We have a journey that we need to complete.
The destination is wherever G-d takes us. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
I love this saying from one of my colleagues:
“G-d doesn’t do it to us.
He does it for us!”
Instead of asking with anger and resentment “why me?” — perhaps we can try to see the larger picture and be grateful for all the blessings and opportunities that G-d does give us.
While certainly there is pain and suffering in this world, there is also the chance to learn, grow, and become stronger and better people.
We are here to hopefully leave the world a better place than before we got here.
The perspective that the challenges and obstacles are not meant to really harm us, but to help us is not an easy pill to swallow.
But maybe it really is the enlightened view of faith that we all need to fight on and overcome. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
There were 2 inspirational student speakers today at my daughter’s graduation from American University.
One spoke about how he got sick soon after starting college with a serious vascular disease, but despite numerous hopsitalizations, treatments, and falling behind his peers, he persevered and was graduating today and in very good spirits.
Another women spoke about her many failures leading up to the success today of her graduation. She described how her father used to ask her:
“What did you fail at this week?”
Why?
Because even though we don’t like to admit it, most people have many, many more failures in life than successes.
Even Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb is said to have failed 1,000 times before getting it right.
This women explained how failure is actually something to celebrate–does that sound crazy?.
But it’s really not, and here’s why?
“To fail is to learn.
To learn is to grow.
To fail is to grow forward.”
Now, I had heard about failing up, but never failing forward.
Many who fail still manage to advance themselves in the process.
But failing forward is different.
It’s not taking advantage of the failure, but legitimately learning from the experience so that you can grow yourself, and advance yourself, by becoming a smarter, stronger, and more capable person from it.
Sure, it hurts to fail.
Who would normally want to celebrate failure?
But if we understand life as a journey and not a specific destination, then we enjoy every blessed moment that we have to become better today and tomorrow than we were yesterday.
In this case, failure is not the opposite of success, but rather is part and parcel of achieving it. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Just reflecting on the day off today on helpful ways for being resilient and coping with day-to-day stress.
1. Teamwork – Remember you’re not alone and you can rely on your colleagues/teammates at work and your family/friends at home to work with you, help you, and also be a support. Together, when you distribute the weight, the load is lighter and more manageable for everyone doing the lifting!
2. Work-Life Balance – Listen, all work and no play is good for no one. When you create a healthy balance in your own life–professional, emotional, intellectual, social, physical, and spiritual–then you will be more balanced, holistic, and better able to manage the ups and downs in any one or more areas of your life. The whole of you is larger than the sum of the parts!
3. Perspective – You’ve got to maintain a healthy perspective and attitude in life. All is not doom and gloom. Not every setback is catastrophic. There is good and bad in everything. And we need to use the challenges in life as learning and growth opportunities. Also, remember that there are many others in even worse shoes than us and their fortitude and seeing it through can be an inspiration to us. At the end of the day, look at the bright side–we all have so much to be grateful for, and every moment of life is a blessing!
4. Sense of Humor – When all else fails, a sense of humor can sometimes be the savings grace of the moment. When you’re looking out over the abyss and you are seeing things dark and maybe quite ugly…perhaps, you can find in yourself, in others, or from a moment in time, something ridiculous or absurdly funny to think back on and laugh to yourself a good, strong, and healthy laugh!
5. Faith – No matter what…G-d is always there for you. Always watching. Always guiding. Always caring and loving you. You can have faith that whatever He does for you is ultimately for your best. The G-d of your forefathers/mothers, the G-d who created you, the G-d who sustains you every moment of every day will not abandon you in your time of need. If you have faith, He will protect and save you and after your amazing life’s journey eventually comes to an end, He will bring you home to reunite with Him!
On my Bar-Mitzvah, now many years ago, my father gave a speech and he said to me from the prayers, be strong and remember:
“The L-rd is with me, I will not fear!” (or in Hebrew “Adonai li v’lo ira”)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So I am definitely someone who is spiritual and tries to be faithful to G-d.
I believe, He is my creator and sustainer and that we are here to learn and grow our soul before it goes back to Hashem.
Yet often, like so many others now-a-days, I find organized religion to be a turn-off.
Why?
1) There is a consistency and sincerity problem.
To some people, I believe it’s partially the rote and robotic nature of some of the practices–where we just do it, because we are told to do it, and we do it over and over and time after time, again–even when we don’t feel it in the moment, and even if we do other things that are not so right in other areas of our lives.
In contrast perhaps, there can be more spontaneous and genuine feelings and actions, in the moment and every moment–that come from the heart and the soul of the person and directly to G-d–and they are consistent whether we are in a religious setting to how we treat others and how we act in business.
In other words, we just don’t follow the rules, but we live them fully and integrated with ourselves and all situations we find ourselves in.
2) There is a money and power problem.
In some religious environments, all people are not created equal or treated equal. Instead, the say, the attention, and the honor goes to the powerful and the rich, who are courted for their donations and their votes to the institution and the spiritual leader. Who gets talked up? Who is given the honors at the religious rituals, at the events and the dinners, and with their communal “peers”?
In other cases, it’s not just money and power that talks, but who is outwardly the “most religious” and presumably walks the walk. If you but “seem” more religious than the next guy, then you are elevated and exalted in the religious community.
Instead, what happened to welcoming and caring for everyone–to everyone being children of G-d–to each person having a soul and their personal life challenges. Why can’t we treat everyone as religiously worthwhile and give everyone a chance to learn and grow in their own way from their starting point and to their destination?
Religion should be the one place that isn’t a competition with others.
Religion is ultimately between man and G-d!
And only G-d knows what is inside man’s heart and in his soul–and what his actions really are all the time and what they truly mean in context and in essence.
I welcome G-d in my life, because I:
– Have faith in Him and that ultimately He has a master plan and that everything is for the good
– Love Him for giving me the chance to learn and grow my soul to be better
– Fear Him for when I do something wrong in my life and need a course correction
I wish for a time and transformation when religion would not just be based on outward manifestations but on being sincere and consistent in people’s lives, and where people would no longer be superficially judged and (mis)treated because they are themselves and on their G-d given paths.
If only we could religiously love, rather than endlessly judge, each other, oh what a heartfelt and inspiring religion that would be. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
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