Who Or What Sets Your Mood?
Does a rainy day set your mood? Does a rejection or acceptance, perceived or real set your mood? In other words, is it external validation that you require?
If we begin each day by being thankful and grateful for the gift of life and all its possibilities, we will curtail the need for external validation.
Throughout the day if you remind yourself that the gift is given to you to use it for the benefit of one or many, you will have all the validation you need. This is especially true when you utilize that gift and all of your possibilities.
“Happiness is an inside job.” – William Arthur Ward
“There’s no reality except the one contained within us. That’s why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.” – Herman Hesse
Revised from the original sent 6/29/11
Kicks
Sing along “Kicks just keep getting harder to find…..” – Paul Revere and the Raiders
Are you seeking kicks to fill a void thinking that will bring you happiness? Or would you find that joy by seeking fulfillment that will bring lasting happiness? The way to permanently fill a void is by finding fulfillment. Or is that something you avoid? We too often look for kicks, fun, and things as the primary goal, thinking that will bring us happiness. The kicks are like eating a piece of candy. That brings a fleeting high and then a low, and so we crave another piece of candy. Nutritionists will tell you to avoid simple carbohydrates (sugars) and for sustained energy eat complex carbohydrates (whole grain starches). To find a sustained level of joy or fulfillment do something to bring happiness to others. Then you can have some candy.
“Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.” – Zhuangzi
“If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.” – Booker T. Washington
“It is only for the sake of those without hope that hope is given to us.” – Walter Benjamin
Happy Day of Giving Thanks
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.
Thank You for being a friend of The Spinning Rabbi
Happy Thanksgiving!
Free Will
While we have all been created for and with a purpose/mission, we were also created with free will. We have the freedom to make choices, good or bad. We instinctively know what is for the good, yet that is not what we always execute. Adam and Eve knew not to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge* and yet they were seduced into doing so. They had it all, then threw it away and left us the legacy of repairing the damage their choice created. The world we all wish for is in our hands. It may not happen on our schedule, but by all of us making the right and good choices, we will get there. We can do good because it’s the right thing and we can do right because it’s the good thing. The freedom we were given should be celebrated by exercising it for the good. We should be grateful for it and not leave it to someone else to do our part.
“We have to believe in free will. We’ve got no choice”. – Isaac Bashevis Singer
“Perhaps the greatest madness of all is to see life only as it is and not as it ought to be.” – Cervantes
Dr. Viktor Frankl in his book “Man’s Search for Meaning”, vividly describes how inmates of Auschwitz living in unimaginable conditions and with everything stripped from them still had the freedom to do good.
“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 “Man’s Search for Meaning”
*Conventional wisdom says the fruit was an apple. Yet in the Torah it does not say what kind of fruit it was. All we know is that it was organic and locally grown (laugh)
Right Now
You Cheated, You Lied….”* Cont’d
Once we have internalized the belief that we have a purpose and it’s that purpose which makes us valuable, we take the next step. The next step is to do, and do, and do more.
“When deeds speak, words are nothing.” – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
We all intrinsically know what to do and the opportunities are presented to us all the time, if we have a “listening heart”.
“I think we all have a little voice inside us that will guide us…if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do.” – Christopher Reeves
Knowing what to do and doing it, is sometimes a big to do. It is a big to do only because we make it so. The most important moment of all is right now, therefore the time to start is right now.
“How wonderful it is, that nobody need wait a single minute before starting to improve the world”. – Anne Frank
“The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.” – Proverb
‘A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” – Charles Darwin
You Cheated, You Lied….”*
Lance Armstrong….What lessons can we learn from his fall.
His burning desire for acclaim was a result of not believing that he truly matters and has value. That lack of belief created the desire for recognition at any cost.
“One who desires the attention of others, has not yet found himself.” – Rabbi Shlomo Wolfe
To believe that you have value begins by recognizing and believing that the world was created for a purpose, and therefore you were uniquely created with a part in the uncovering of that purpose. Otherwise, is to say that you are just another grain of sand in the desert. That belief leads to feelings of worthlessness, insecurity, and low self-esteem. That feeling of meaninglessness leads you far away from climbing your mountain.
“It is meaningless to talk about one’s purpose in life if there is no purpose for the existence of the world.” – Rabbi Abraham Twerski
“Temptation rushes in to fill the vacuum of meaninglessness. We must fight temptation with meaning.” — Rabbi Shraga Silverstein
First you recognize and then continuously remind yourself that you have been given the gift of life. You have been given that gift for you to bring your gift/purpose to life. Accomplishing your purpose and mission is ultimately for the benefit of all. It is much more valuable to all than one standing on a podium receiving trophies and medals solely for the acclaim. Those awards only really matter if they are consistent with ones purpose.
You may not know your unique purpose, but if you cheat you will never find it. Using the gifts you were given to reach your full potential is the greatest accomplishment. We are all like musicians in a great symphony. When we each play our instrument to its fullest potential, we will hear the most resonant music we all yearn for.
“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.” – Rumi
“Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.” – Walt Whitman
“The measure of who we are is what we do with what we have.” – Vince Lombardi
“We are here to add what we can to life, not to get what we can from life.” – William Osler
To be continued….
*Song by The Shields 1958
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