Can Make You Stronger
“That which doesn’t kill us, makes us stronger.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
You’re probably familiar with that quote. I think it would be more accurate to say “can make us stronger”.
It ultimately comes down to choice. How you choose to respond to all that comes, or is sent your way, can make you stronger. You have no choice as to what comes or is sent your way. You do have the choice as to how you respond.
Like a boxer in a fight who gets knocked down. He can give up and stay down, or he can get up, quickly learn what just happened, and fight stronger and better.
One choice can make you stronger and one might kill you. Not literally kill you, but kill your chance for a life filled with meaning, purpose, success, and joy. The life you say you want, right?
“Our lives are fashioned by our choices. First we make our choices. Then our choices make us.” – Anne Frank
“It’s choice, not chance that matters” – Jean Nidetch
“Life is a sum of all your choices.” – Albert Camus
It begins with internalizing the attitude of believing that you do have the power of choice. You are the boss of you!
All of life’s choices have a price. We can’t choose the price. We can only choose whether we are willing to pay it.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstances, to choose one’s own way”. – Dr. Viktor Frankl from his book “Man’s Search for Meaning” He was a Holocaust survivor*
Attitude and Choice
“In life some people have it easy and make it hard and some people have it hard and make it easy” Sam Fox, my Father (obm), a Holocaust suvivor
Dr. Edith Eva Eger, who was also a Holocaust survivor, never forgets what her mother told her the day her and her family were taken by the Nazis:
“We don’t know where we’re going, we don’t know what’s going to happen, but no one can take away from you what you put in your own mind.”
Dr. Eger used to ask herself, “Why me? Why did I survive?” But over the years she has learned to ask a different question: “Why not me? What is mine to do with the life I’ve been given?”
Here is your homework
*I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you haven’t read Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book, make the choice to read it!!
Then read “The Choice” by Dr. Edith Eva Eger
Be Good Do Good Think Good
Happy Day of Giving Thanks 2019
We so quickly and casually say “Happy Thanksgiving” that we often miss and forget that it’s a day for actually giving Thanks. Of course, so is every day and we begin everyday with Thanks.
What are you Thankful for?
Who are you Thankful for? Thank them!
Thank You for being a friend of Fred Fox, Spinning Rabbi
Humpty Upty*
*An oldie but goodie, that a reader recently brought to my attention, so I’m reposting it with some addition
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.” – Mother Goose
Why couldn’t all the king’s horses and all the king’s men put Humpty back together again?
First, Humpty had to want to be put back together again. Secondly, and most importantly, only Humpty could put himself back together again.
Everyone else could lend a supporting hand, an uplifting hand, be a cheerleading section, but it was all up to Humpty. Humpty could continue to be a Dumpty, or he could choose to be an Upty!!
When we realize, believe, and continually remind ourselves that each of our lives have value, that we are here for a specific purpose and mission, then being an Upty becomes easier.
We all sometimes stumble, we all sometimes fall, and we all sometimes get knocked down. What you do when that happens determines where you go and you determine the determining.
“Why do we fall- so we can learn to pick ourselves up.” – from Batman Begins
“The righteous may fall seven times, but they always rise again.” – King Solomon Proverbs
If you were a boxer and got knocked to the mat, you might say to yourself (consciously or un) “if I stay down I can’t get hit again”. That is the self-preservation instinct born of fear, protecting you from getting hurt again. The odds of winning are zero if you choose to stay down.
The ultimate self-preservation instinct should be to get back up in order to fight for the life you want. How much do you desire that life? How hard are you willing to fight for it?
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair
Know that you will fall or get knocked down again. Accept that and understand that it’s part of preparing and learning. The trick is to train, learn, and prepare yourself so that each time, you not only get back up, but you get back up quicker.
Be Good Do Good Think Good
Another Lesson From The Butterfly
Here is another lesson from the butterfly. See the previous post for the first ones
There is a story that when John James Audubon was a boy, he saw a budding butterfly that had just transformed from a caterpillar in it’s cocoon. It looked to him as though the butterfly was struggling to get out and was in pain. So he snipped the cocoon in order to make a larger opening. Soon the butterfly emerged. Sadly, one of it’s wings was deformed, so it couldn’t properly fly.
This teaches us that it was in the struggle that a butterfly becomes fully formed and strong enough to be what it’s meant to be.
Sound Familiar?
You, me, and all of us have had struggles, or are having some now, and yes there will most likely be more. Just like the butterfly, it is through those struggles that we can get stronger. It is getting through to the other end, that we get stronger and can fly.
If you adopt the belief and attitude that the struggles presented to you are challenges meant to make you stronger, they will do just that when you push through the cocoon.
The difference between you and the butterfly is choice. The butterfly does not have a choice, you do. What you choose to do with the struggle determines whether you come out of your cocoon ready to fly.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, and there is life at the end of the cocoon.
Be Good Do Good Think Good
“I Don’t Feel Like It”*
Do you suffer from “I don’t feel like it -itus”? Here is a cure for whenever it gets in the way.
You know you should get some exercise but you don’t feel like it. You have a list of excuses to choose from
“I didn’t sleep well.”
” I had a fight with my significant other.”
“I had a bad day at the office.”
Etcetera. ecetera….You know that exercise is good for you. You know from experience that when you exercised, you always feel better afterwards. So it’s important to make that extra effort to exercise. Making that extra effort is now part of the workout. It’s as though you began with some heavy lifting. You have trained yourself to overcome an emotion that stands in the way of your progress and growth.
Kabbalists speak of “Head over Heart.” The head is above the heart, so that metaphorically the head should overrule the heart. The head represents the intellect that knows what is right to do. The heart represents the emotions which are often impulsive and when acted upon alone, sends us off the path of our improvement and growth. Ideally, eventually the head and heart will find a balance to work together. Until we find that balance we should let the head overrule.
Beyond exercise, which is for ourselves, the same head over heart approach applies to our dealings with others. Too often we are not as kind, compassionate, or charitable, because at that moment we “don’t feel like it.”
When we are feeling up and in a good mood, it’s easy to be giving. Giving of ourselves is hardest, just like exercise, when we’re not in the mood. Just like exercise, that is precisely the time to make that extra effort, knowing that it’s the good and right thing to do, and that you will feel better afterwards.
Eventually, using that knowledge, it will become easier and easier to automatically do the right thing. So whenever you find yourself saying “I don’t feel like it,” tell yourself that that’s all the more reason to do it.
Doing good always makes you feel good
“There is no better exercise for your heart, than reaching down and helping to lift someone up.” – Bernard Meltzer
With that in mind, keep this in mind
“The greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more.” – Dr. Jonas Salk
Be Good Do Good Think Good
*An “Oldie but Goodie” updated
The Spinning Rabbi - Heart & Soul 