A Proper Blogoversary Post

An interesting thing happened just around my blogoversary which is worthy to write about in this post. My parents decided to clean up my room in their house, (no this is not the interesting thing…wait for it…) where I no longer live, but still have tons of stuff, lots of it is garbage. As I was going through it all, among the stuff, I found something unbelievably amazing. I found my diary from over a decade ago, a journal that I wrote in intermittently between the ages of 10 through 13. Extremely curious as to what in the world my thoughts were at that age, I carefully opened it up and went back in time to my childhood, to when I began to discover that I like to write.

The pages were filled with what I did each day, how I felt about just about everything, and memories I had long forgotten about. One diary entry contained thoughts that were so not me at all that I don’t remember ever thinking in my life, and I burst out laughing. I sure was an interesting kid. I found myself wishing I had written more down, recorded more, especially when I got up to descriptions of my grandfather who passed away before I reached high school, or when I reached points in time where I know important events happened that I barely wrote about. I looked back at the past with very different eyes. It’s amazing how words are like time capsules that can take us back to any place and time. Writing is a great way to preserve memories, but also a great form of self-expression.

About a year and a half ago I was looking for a new hobby. Something fun to spice up my life a little, to escape from boredom, not just the kind of boredom when you have nothing to do, but the kind when your bored with what you are doing. That’s when a friend of mine suggested I start a blog. I had never really read any blogs, and didn’t know what to write about, so I started reading. I’ve often wanted to share my thoughts with the world and after enough reading I decided it could be a lot of fun and so a year ago I started this blog.

I didn’t really know what to call the blog, and I admit I don’t love this blog’s name, but it was the easiest thing I could think of. Although I always loved school because I love learning and knowledge, I always thought “real life” would begin when school was over, and I was quite anxious for that. Then I graduated, and although my tagline is that “I pretty much knew what to expect from life and then I graduated college,” that is not completely true. Like any other average person, life had thrown me my share of disappointments in the past. Facing life after college was not a big surprise, but it was a bit of a wake up call. All the sudden I had the chance to do anything I wanted, the world was mine to explore, there were so many paths I could take, and long story made short the excitement was kind of paralyzing, and not everything went quite the way I thought it would. It was like the scene from Finding Nemo when the fish have spent the entire movie trying to get out of the fish tank in the dentists office, and they finally come up with a plan that works, but there they are sitting in plastic bags in the ocean, so free yet so trapped, and they turn to each other and say, “Now what?”

I’ve learned a lot in the past year, and I have learned a lot from blogging. I have learned that sometimes when you write and release your thoughts, you let them go and allow yourself to move on, while other times recording thoughts instead causes those thoughts which you wanted to let go, to run through your mind again and again and again. I discovered that no matter how clear and obvious you think you are being people will always read things they way they choose and not the way you intended them, that once you press “post” it is out there for people to read as they like. I learned that some things are difficult to say, even if you’re anonymous.

It’s been a fun year of blogging, and I look forward to the next year going forward. Blogging would never be the same without readers, and I would like to thank all of you reading this for reading, especially those of you who have shared positive or constructive feedback through comments or email. I truly enjoy hearing from you. Thanks for reading! :)




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Why I love Parshat B'Shalach

All parshiot are great, though perhaps some are difficult to relate to, but every year Parshat B’Shalach really gets to me. An inspirational story with a practical lesson as well. Talk about drama and the suspense. Hashem finally took out B’nei Yisrael from Mitzrayim, they are free to go, only they find themselves facing the biggest challenge yet. I mean, don’t we find that is true in life as well? Just when think we finally got through a tough situation/time and we finally made it out, we find ourselves bombarded with the next challenge, which just seems even more impossible.

We are all so used to the story of Kriat Yam Suf, but can you just imagine what it must have felt like to be there? They are completely and utterly trapped. There is a large body of water in front of them and the Egyptians are chasing them. There is absolutely no where for them to go. For us we’re like, “Well, if you can’t go around it, go through it- go through the water. Just ask Hashem to create a path of dry land for you.” They did not have boats and it must have seemed like there was no way out. Scary thought: Wait a minute. We thought the best thing that could happen to us is to be free from slavery. Now we’re free. What if the freedom that we’ve longed for is actually worse?

New situations can be scary. Sometimes we’re afraid to leave bad situations because knowledge and familiarity is comforting, and jumping into a situation where you don’t know what’s flying can be terrifying, even if you know intellectually that it is better. There is always that fear that perhaps even though it is supposed to be better, it won’t be. So B’nei Yisrael panic for a second. Moshe urges them to hang in there and wait and see the amazing way Hashem is going to save them.

And then, just as they think it is over, that there is nowhere to turn, the naturally impossible happens. Hashem performs a miracle and they walk on dry land through the water. Though Hashem doesn’t perform miracles that defy nature today, we can still learn the lesson that even situations that seem impossible to overcome have a solution. We can always hope and always turn to Hashem.

Another reason I love this week’s parsha is because of the amazing faith of the Jewish people, particularly the Jewish women who prepared musical instruments for the time of redemption. When you’re in a bad situation, you are often stuck in a bad mindset that doesn’t allow you to think about a time when things will be better. Thinking that, “Things will get better, and to prove it, I better get ready for it,” is a great lesson as well.

This reminds me of one of my favorite stories, the origin of which I unfortunately I do not know. The story is told of a town that was suffering a lack of rainfall and the drought was so serious that it was threatening their survival. The community gathered together and prayed, they fasted, and prayed some more. Nothing seemed to be working. Finally, someone from the town approached the Rabbi and begged him to do something. The Rabbi thought for a while and told the entire community to gather together in the field to pray together for rain. Every single person, all men, women, children, gathered together outside at the appointed time. When the Rabbi shows up he looked out at the entire community and asked, “Do you believe that it is going to rain?” “Yes!” they shouted in unison. But the Rabbi asked again, “Do you really, truly, believe that it is going to rain?” Again, they all replied that they did. The Rabbi then asked a simple question, “So, nu, where are all of your umbrellas?!”

Parshat B’Shalach teaches us that Hashem can save us at any moment, no matter how desperate a situation may seem. If we really have faith that Hashem will save us, then we have to show that we are ready for it.

Have a good shabbos!

When good people do bad things

A recent story made me think about the fact that I am idealistic. Those who claim to be realistic have tried to convince me that I will not be this way forever, and that as soon as I meet an evil person I will turn cynical like them. I believe that people are good, and since that might sound naïve, I would like to quickly add that I also understand that people can do bad things.

I was having a conversation with someone about this man who I know who did something that is extremely bad and wrong. Just to be clear, this was something extraordinarily bad, and it is not like he just said a bad word or made some small mistake accidently. She blamed him for something else that he had been involved in, claiming he probably had bad motives in that instance as well. Though he behaved horribly, I suggested, “He probably didn’t think that. He was a nice guy.” This statement caused outrage. “He was a nice guy?!” she exclaimed. “Do you know what he did?!”

She knew very well that I knew about the situation since we had discussed it many times, and in all of those cases I had made it perfectly clear that I thought his actions were wrong, and that I found them to be completely unacceptable. I stared at her and told her that of course I knew what he did and that of course that was a terrible thing, but that doesn’t mean he is completely evil. “People are complex,” I explained, “Just because he did something terrible, doesn’t mean that everything he did was bad and that he was out to get everyone in every aspect of his life.” Looking at me like I was absolutely crazy, she insisted that he only put on show of being nice sometimes, but clearly his morally upsetting actions show that this persona was completely fake. Deep down underneath it all, he is a bad person.

For some reason this made me quiet and thoughtful for the rest of the day, and here I am writing about it to try to sort out my thoughts. Perhaps she is right, I thought, maybe it was all a show and I was completely wrong about him. This idea bothered me for a few reasons, firstly that I am a strong believer in my gut feelings about people. This is why when I first found out what happened, my shock lasted only a few seconds and then I knew it was probably true, even before I received confirmation. Although I always believed his friendliness was genuine, I could tell there was something additional going on with him that made me wary. Secondly, in addition to being bothered at the idea that I was wrong, I was also bothered by the idea that some bad behavior means a person is all bad.

I don’t live in a dream world. I know perfectly well that there are evil people out there, people who want to hurt people, people who do not have any good intentions at all, who are all bad. But I believe those are the few exceptions in humanity, and that most people are good, deep down. It is important to be prudent of people who do bad things, and of course I would never assume that someone who appears to be preparing to cause me harm is really good so I shouldn’t worry about it. Good people do bad things, but that doesn’t mean that they are bad. In fact, one cause of good people becoming bad is when they do one bad thing and believe they cannot fix it and that this one bad act defines who they really are. G-d allows for Teshuva. Ironically, today I spoke to someone in a way that I later regretted. Although I felt terrible afterwards, part of the reason I was upset is because I knew that I acted in a way that was not true to who I really am.
Since it has no practical ramifications to my life, as I don’t interact with this man on a daily basis, and since it is always best to judge people favorable, I concluded by deciding to think that although he messed up big time, aside from that I have faith that he is still a good person.

Questions for the readers/ food for thought: Do you think that someone who does something that is extremely bad and terrible, is all bad? Do you think that someone can be good and bad at the same time or is that too contradictory? Do you believe that there are people out there who are truly evil without any trace of goodness in them?



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Dieting Challenges

I am quite ready for Adar Sheini. With all of the Chaggim falling so early, Chanukah ended up right after Thanksgiving, and I decided that their unusual proximity was to blame when I hopped on the scale and cringed at what I saw. At least during Tishrei we’ve got two fast days in there to offer some assistance. After all, by the time I finished with leftovers from the turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie and other goodies from Thanksgiving, there were only a few days before Chanukah began, and the next thing I knew there was just so much to eat between the Chanukah gelt (I am a chocoholic), sufganiot, and delicious yet fattening, oily latkes. Although it is probably a good thing that at the time they were instituting the minhagim for Chanukah they had no knowledge of things such as fast food, French fries or high fructose corn syrup. I could only imagine if the story had happened in today’s day and age with the high rates of obesity, that the minhag would be to eat salad with an olive oil dressing to commemorate the oil burning 8 nights. While not as tasty, that would perhaps have been better for my diet. You know, the one that starts tomorrow (as diets always do).

I remember the first time I decided to try to lose a couple pounds. Baruch Hashem I only had a couple of pounds to lose-I was never overweight, though I was never skinny either. I had never considered exercising or dieting; I seriously enjoy eating good food and never liked sports or being active, as I was quite out of shape and would find myself huffing and puffing after anything longer or faster than a 5 minute walk. But in high school for the first time I got my act together and started eating healthier and started exercising. Losing weight is really difficult for a number of reasons, but one reason is that it requires a lot of motivation and perseverance to continue when it doesn’t seem like you are accomplishing anything at all. We often expect to see immediate results, and unless you go on some crazy diet to lose weight fast (which I am completely against because in most cases I’ve seen as soon as people go off of it they gain the weight right back and no one can stick to one of those crazy things forever), losing weight takes time. At least it does if you do it by changing your lifestyle and your eating habits.

I used to be jealous of people who are very skinny, especially those who insist that they are unable to gain weight no matter how hard they try. I always say that if I was super skinny I would never exercise at all and I would eat anything I wanted all the time. Which is why it is a really great thing that Hashem did not make me naturally skinny because then I would be very unhealthy. I realized that if I was born super skinny, I would not have learned some of the great lessons I learned from exercising and dieting. The first main lesson I learned was the one I mentioned above about perseverance, and along with that is patience. This comes in handy in so many situations in life, especially when it comes to working on middot. Sometimes I unrealistically think that I will just be able to change overnight, that I will just decide in my head to abolish a certain negative behavior from my life and that will be the end of it. Unfortunately, things are just not that simple. You don’t lose weight overnight, and you can’t change yourself overnight. Sometimes you might even gain weight before you lose weight. Sometimes you’ll fail before you succeed. But you can’t let that stop you or you will not get anywhere. You have to keep going day after day after day, even if you do not feel like you are accomplishing anything.

Another lesson that I learned is that it is not all or nothing. Just because I broke my diet and ate that piece of cake I promised myself I wouldn’t touch, doesn’t mean I should give up and decide to throw the whole diet out the window. One mess-up doesn’t mean it’s time to give up. The same thing is true for exercising. Ideally, working out for longer is better, but just because I don’t have time to work out for an hour every day, doesn’t mean I shouldn’t work out at all. If I can work out for 45 minutes one day, then that is great. If another day all I have is 15 minutes, then that is what I have and I go for it. I do what I can do and try my best. (As I wrote about before, every drop counts.)

Despite starting out completely out of shape, I started exercising regularly in high school and kept it up. I laugh when I think about how lazy I used to be and how I would get out breathe by walking down the block. When I go for a walk for an hour and feel like I can keep going, I feel great. Additionally, exercising turned out to be a great outlet for me to let out steam and de-stress. It’s a great way to take a break and revitalize. Although there are days when I don’t want to exercise at all and force myself to anyway, most of the time I feel great afterwards. To finish the story, I lost a relatively small, but for me a decent size amount of weight over a long, long time, most of which I kept off, though it’s been up and down.

Now that Thanksgiving and Chanukah are over, the diet starts today. Not tomorrow, today. Even if it is small, even if it is step by step, even if it seems like I’m not going anywhere. Even though I know I’m going to mess up, and won’t stick to my original plan. I will overcome my dieting challenges!

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Press the "Shuffle" button

That song was stuck in my head again. My head swayed gently to the melody, until I got up to the part where I couldn’t remember the words. Or the tune for that matter. Wait, how did it go next? Where did I even hear that song, I wondered. It was a Jewish song so I knew I couldn’t have heard it anywhere. It kept getting stuck my head, but I only knew part of the song. Don’t you hate it when that happens? I kept desperately trying to remember how it might go next, or at least to remember where I heard it so I could listen to it again. That way it could get stuck in my head properly and not all choppy. Unfortunately, I could not figure out how the song went. And it might not have bothered me quite so much, but it kept getting stuck in my head and though I tried pretty hard, I could not get it out!

Fast forward a few weeks.

I was sitting on the floor in the corner of my room, taking a break by relaxing and listening to music. I had put my iPod on shuffle, letting myself be surprised by whatever song was randomly selected. And that’s when it came on. That song! I opened my eyes and sat up alarmed and stared down at my iPod in shock. There it was! The song that had been stuck in my head for weeks, which it turned out was on an old Miami Boys Choir CD that I had purchased ages ago, and apparently hadn’t listened to very much. A huge smile involuntarily spread across my face, and I could not stop grinning. I listened attentively as the song played through, taking in each note, each word as though it was just for me. There are many songs that make me happy, but I can’t put into words the intense joy and pleasure I received from listening to that song.

It was not because the song was such a great song. The song is relatively decent, but not incredible. What was amazing was the discovery that the song that I spent so much time searching for, was in fact something that I already had, it was already in my possession. I longed to hear the song again so badly, only to realize that it was already on my iPod! My search was over. It had been bothering me so much, and now, not only did I get to hear the entire song to hear how the rest of it went, but I could listen to it over and over and over. Which of course I did.

This happened a long time ago, but I put my iPod on shuffle recently and this song came up, and it reminded me of how happy I was when I heard it that time. Every time I hear that song I remember how intensely happy I was at that moment and the potential intense happiness that occurs when you discover you already have what you want. When you appreciate something that belongs to you, and you don’t have to go searching for it or chasing it down, but it belongs to you, it is a great feeling. It can be painful to want something intensely, but not be able to have it. The reverse is simply wonderful. Sometimes we don’t appreciate what we have. We forget how much we would want it if we didn’t have it, whether it is something significant such as our health or food to eat and clothes to wear, or whether it is something insignificant such as a favorite mug that we assign value to.

At the beginning of the book “Battle Plans,” by Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller and Sara Yocheved Rigler (a great book by the way, which I highly recommend!), a book about how to fight your Yetzer Harah, they quote the Maharal who says that the Yetzer Harah is the voice that tells you, “You don’t have what you need.” The Yetzer Harah emphasizes that something is lacking in your life, and so you try to fill that lack inappropriately and so you sin. They write that one solution to this problem is to realize that Hashem has given you everything you need. I thought this was a great point, and have found it to be true. I find that when I focus on what is missing in my life I’m not as happy as when I focus on all the amazing things that Baruch Hashem are in my life.

A lesson I learned was that sometimes we need to put our mind on “shuffle.” We need to dig through to find the things we take for granted, to try to seek out the positive, instead of playing the same songs that we always listen to, focusing on the same negative thoughts over and over. The good thoughts are in there somewhere, we just have to find them, although sometimes they show up when we expect it the least.