“Can’t Buy Me Love”, The Beatles
It is through love that we find true joy. We find joy through loving ourselves first. The next step is to find it through romantic love of another and love of our fellow-man.
“The salvation of man is through love and in love.” – Dr.Viktor Frankl
To find the love that will bring the joy, we should examine the value and priority we place on what we love.
“A man is only as good as what he loves.” – Saul Bellow
In the movie “Rocky Vl”, the reigning heavyweight champion has all the houses, Bentleys, bling, and entourage and yet his life feels unfulfilled. He visits the first boxing coach he had when he was a boy. Sitting in the old and run down inner-city gym he explained his feelings of emptiness. The coach responded by saying
“You have everything money can buy, except what it can’t.” – From Rocky VI
True Happiness
“The truly happy man is the one who has everything money can’t buy.” — Rabbi Shraga Silverstein
“Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places”
While everyone professes the desire to be in love or love, it seems few these days succeed.
Whether it’s romantic love or love of your fellow-man, perhaps the failure stems from the wrong definition of love. The wrong definition and expectation leads to not discovering it and/or not maintaining it.
Never one to pick on Elvis, but his song “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You”, is the wrong definition. It sounds romantic and yet it is the “I” that is the wrong starting point. It is the “I” that wants and needs but doesn’t ask what it can give, only what it can get. Like a small child who is dying to get a certain toy only to quickly grow tired of it and want another is the “I”.
True and real love is not for taking, it’s for giving.
“We may give without loving, but we cannot love without giving.” – Bernard Meltzer
“We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.” – Tom Robbins
“Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat.” – Ben Hecht
Stuck On If
How many of those If moments are spent on “my parents did/didn’t do…, or my significant other, or my……
Imagine that you are on a hike. It’s a difficult wooded trail. You fall or are pushed into a large deep hole. Will you spend precious moments kvetching and affixing blame to why and how you fell into the hole? ”Why did they push me?” or “there should have been a sign” or “someone should have covered it up”, or “someone should have told me about it”…..” Or would you just figure out how to get out as quickly as possible and continue the hike to your destination?
“The only thing standing between me and success is me.” – Woody Allen
“You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity.” — Golda Meir
“A man can fail many times, but he isn’t a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.” – John Burroughs
If
We have all heard the expression “being in… or living in the moment”. Let’s make a seemingly small and semantic change and make it “living the moment”.
The gift of life is not just given to us every day; it is given and renewed with and in every moment. Why else would it be given to us if not to live it? That means being alive and available to everyone and everything in that very precious moment. Each moment is the most precious non-renewal commodity of all.
How often do we find ourselves spending those precious moments thinking “if this hadn’t happened”, “if this wasn’t happening”, or “if this does/doesn’t happen all will be good”? We are everywhere but here. Have you ever missed your exit on the highway because your mind is somewhere else? Bring your mind to where your body is, because you are where your mind is.
“Every bit of time, every day that passes, is not just a day. It is a life’s concern” – Hayom Yom, Cheshvan 17
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is G-d’s gift…. that’s why they call it the present.” – Joan Rivers
“Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.” – Emma Phillips
“Time is limited, so I better wake up every morning fresh and know that I have just one chance to live this particular day right, and to string my days together into a life of action, and purpose.” – Lance Armstrong
How Do You Know Who You Are?
Sing along with me “Who are you, who, who, who, who…” The Who.
The true you is found in the giving you. It is embedded in your soul. The “I” can be a taker, but the true you is a giver.
So you have to ask yourself, whether or not, all that you do, you do, as a giving for the benefit of others? If the answer is yes, then you have found you.
You matter, not because you are, but by what you do and give.
“It’s not who you are underneath , it’s what you do that defines you”—Batman in “Batman Begins”
“The heart that gives, gathers”—Marianne Moore
“The soul was sent to this world not to be, but to do.” – Yanki Tauber
“Through faith man experiences the meaning of the world; through action he is to give to it a meaning.” — Leo Baeck
Updated from the original post of 2/23/11
“If I am I because I am I…
“If I am I because I am I, and you are you because you are you, then I am I and you are you. But, if I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you”. – R’Mendel of Kotzk
Simply stated, what that means can be summarized by
“Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.” – Oscar Wilde.
While that’s correct, let’s look a little deeper and ask why be you. If your life has a purpose (and it does) then you cannot find and fulfill that purpose without you being you. Your value is the unique you. There is no one else like you and therefore no one else can fulfill your purpose. Giving and sharing that unique you matters.
You are not just matter. It is you that matters.
“If I try to be like him, who will be like me?” — Yiddish Proverb
“If you want to be original just try being yourself, because G-d has never made two people exactly alike.” – Bernard Meltzer
Updated from the original sent 2/21/11
Life On A Merry-Go-Round
In order to uncover and discover who we truly are, our purpose, and find joy we climb our mountain. We constantly reach and aim higher.
Too often though, we may move, but only in circles and not up or forward. When we move in circles our life’s results are repeated over and over. What should be surprising is that we are surprised when nothing seems to change or improve?? It’s as though we are on a Merry-Go-Round that isn’t really very merry. Is it?
“Never mistake motion for action”. – Ernest Hemingway
“All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.” – Ellen Glasgow
If you find yourself on that Merry-Go-Round, first get off and then repeat this to yourself
“Only as high as I reach can I grow, only as far as I seek can I go, only as deep as I look can I see, only as much as I dream can I be.” – Karen Ravn
The Spinning Rabbi - Heart & Soul 