Living With Emunah (Part 234) - Our Power is in the Present

good morning boca tov welcome back to living with emunah as always we express our great gratitude to our sponsors on the series for the year dr xavier bella morgan memory of rabbi dr brian galbet and in memory of bella's mother dr ellen schanzer tremendous gratitude also those who have not yet signed up please sign up for our one-on-one campaign in the merit of sd moscow it's our beloved little sd moskowitz wishing her a speedier for slim among all those who are ill a dollar a day of giving and a minute a day of learning it's as simple as that you could act in the merit and give her a complete please guide her for shleima all it takes is one and one one dollar a day of giving and one minute a day of learning you could join at brsonline.org the number one a and d one one and one brsonline.org one and one the dollar day is through daily giving partnering with dr donath of great of uh daily giving brs are not recipients of this money this is not a ploy for us to raise money from you but rather it is a platform for all of us to be able to give a dollar a day to a diverse group of uh stuck as really beautiful worthwhile charities a dollar day of giving and journal whatsapp group that's 60 seconds a day of learning all of us have one dollar a day all of us have one minute a day it can be in her merit and the merit of others so please go embarrass online.org one and one okay back to simcha we've been talking about happiness happiness is the foundation for life a meaningful life a rich life a happy life uh happiness is the driver it gives us the serenity and the peace it gives us the space and the peace of mind to be able to be our best selves if we don't have a simple sacha we don't have a joy for life if we're not happy what else do we have so i want to share with you i'd love to share the emails that come in please keep sending them if you have a great amount of story it's a story about happiness that would change your life please let me know i'm alright rabbi goldberg hope as well thank you for sharing blah blah blah blah blah i know uh rebbe liked some of the stories i thought i'd share one last year when i was graduating i had a very hard time finding a job because of the pandemic company after company was rejecting me even small companies and jobs that i thought i was qualified for i was rejected by over 150 jobs can imagine that's a lot of jobs to be rejected by that is a lot of rejection one could feel very dejected he writes one day i noticed on linkedin that the nba was looking for an accounting intern i thought why would the nba hire me when all these other places rejected me but what do i have to lose lo and behold i got the job that shows me the keys of parnassa are in hashem's hands this job gives me a big name on my resume enough flexibility i could get a master's studied the cpa i got one of those other jobs i wouldn't have been able to do all this looking back hashem really set me up in a position of success in that moment it was hard to see why things were going poorly but looking back i see the bigger picture and why i didn't receive any of those earlier jobs really uh really amazing story so he has the benefit person who signs it did not give me permission to use his name but he has the benefit of being able to look back and make sense of it we don't always have that sometimes we reject it 150 times 150 jobs 150 girls or guys 150 attempts at whatever breakthrough we're trying to achieve and sometimes we don't see later on why it needed to happen but often we do your antenna has to be extended he could have just gotten the job and said oh great bar hashem i have a job let's go he chose to pause and look back and say now i understand why i didn't get those other jobs those other jobs would not have afforded me the opportunity i have now with this job so just a great amount of story it reminds us and gives us that faith to live our lives hashem is in charge he's in control he holds the keys let go and let god get out of the way and let him do his thing and everything that happens for us is for a reason i think we talked about last week thomas edison he didn't fail once he invented the light bulb it was just a process that had a lot of steps to it but he never failed once so he got a job and he wasn't rejected once it was just a search that took 150 steps to be able to get the job that was meant for him that was number one number two before we dive back into bayam i want to share with you um i get an email with interesting facts if you're a rabbi you're always looking for russian material so any email which can come into your inbox which has the gift of joshua material you gratefully have and i will not tell you what it's called because i don't want any of you to get it but anyway it had the following and at the following fascinating insight and i thought how perfect you know we've spoken a lot about happiness is not an emotion happiness is a decision we've spoken a lot about that in yiddish right that's what we believe simcha where you put your brain where you put your thoughts where you put your mind that's what determines your happiness if you focus on what you have not what's missing if you focus on the good not the bad if you focus on the pleasure not the pain it's all a question of what we're looking at what we choose to focus on we are the arbiters of our simcha of our joy of our happiness happiness is not an emotion it is a decision that we make again we're not talking about people with clinical depression or unhappiness or anxiety that is not a decision that is something that needs support and we're not talking about a person who's mourning or grieving who just experienced loss does someone sitting shiva should not choose to focus on what they should be happy about we're not focused on that either we've spoken at length about it we're talking about the average person on the average day when you wake up in the morning do you think about what hurts do you let out a cracks on a groan and a moan about what's missing or do you think about what works and what feels great and do you feel a sense of simcha it is a decision it is not an emotion we've also spoken about the micro muscles in our face that those micro muscles are connected to the chemicals that our brain releases and impacts our feeling remember we talked about a while ago i gave you all the homework i guess everybody stopped doing it which was to smile wake up every day and smile because it turns out it's not that when you're happy you smile but when you smile you're happy so this article says we have to fear and worry and be careful about the opposite it turns out that you may want to wear sunglasses if you want to be happy why do you need to wear sunglasses to be happy i don't get any cut in the ray-bans i'm not a stakeholder or a shareholder not looking to make money off of the sunglasses but why do sunglasses make you happy so listen to this very interesting um being frustrated grumpy is part of life and hopefully a temporary short-lived aspect of our existence but we've all been there and when we are it's often an emotion that others can see just by looking at the frown on our faces we purse our lips scrunch our foreheads furrow our eyebrows and as a result narrow our eyes it's pretty basic example of cause and effect being upset causes us to make that face or in other words our face is reacting to our emotions which is a very jewish total idea how do you say face in hebrew how do you say what's happening inside panim your punim reveals your pnim your face reveals what's happening inside you wear it on your face you wear it on your sleeve your punim reveals your panim when we look towards the sun on a bright sunny day our faces tend to do the same thing we squint our eyes to limit the amount of sunlight that we're taking in in part so that we can see where we're going that causes us to raise our cheeks and drop our eyebrows which in turn leads to scrunched foreheads and pursed lips we're not unhappy we're just trying to keep the sun out of our eyes but it might not matter we are effectively frowning according to a 2014 study that's enough to make us grumpy research surveyed 137 females aged 18 to 40 145 males 18 to 39 who were hanging out at the beach the groups were split between those wearing sunglasses and those not some walk with the sun behind and others with it in front participants were asked to take a brief survey about their emotional state without being told why and the results were hardly sunny those against the sun reported more aggressiveness than those wearing sunglasses or those with the sun behind and this happened despite the majority of participants reported being unaffected by the sunlight the authors concluded self-reported aggressiveness bore direct relation to the extent of their irritation from the sun in their eyes what's happening it seems like our brains are reverse cause and effect when we're upset we frown but when we have to deflect the glare of the sun we also frown and our brain assumes that frown is because we're upset and if our brain says we're upset it's the boss we get grumpy as smithsonian notes that shouldn't be surprising the idea that your facial expression can secretly change your mood isn't new previous studies have suggested that even things like botox can make you feel happier because you're being forced to smile all the time that is not a justification it's not an argument and the idea that frowning is related to the sun isn't new either charles darwin noticed the way the frowning helped shade the eyes car uh whatever so if you want to keep the grumps away there's an easy way put on some sunglasses shield your eyes from the sun keeping your heart relaxed and your mood just where it needs to be i read that i thought it was very interesting that if you're looking at the sun makes you frown and then that makes you feel down then the opposite is also true when you force yourself to smile it releases the endorphins and the chemicals that make you feel happy so i am giving that homework assignment again we're bringing it back which is to start the day and throughout the day put a reminder on your phone if you have to set the alarm to remind you to smile for no reason now if you're at a funeral first of all turn the alarm off but also don't start smiling randomly in the middle of the funeral but you know in the appropriate place and at the appropriate time smile smile don't wait to be happy to smile smile and you will be happy and when you're happy the whole world smiles with you so we've been learning all about the source of happiness when we are incomplete and lacking and missing what makes us feel whole is by attaching ourselves to the one who's the most whole which is the ribano shalom which is hashem by by linking into him by writing his coattails so to say by connecting or riding the hashem wave of the world then we're able to feel whole and complete and happy no matter what's happening because we know he's in charge and he's in control when we submit and when we surrender then we are not depleted or robbed of our happiness because we realize whatever happens is the way it meant to be whatever happens is the way it's meant to be this is it it's possible i was in bed the other night when one of my children called me because they hit a curb the piece of the car had fallen down and they couldn't drive and i had to get out of bed and go meet them and help them and i reminded myself the hallway there in the middle of the night why were they out and about that's an excellent question but i reminded myself the hallway there that's what's meant to be hashem wanted the bumper to be hanging off and he wanted you to have to go home and get a screwdriver and come back again a second time and not have enough sleep then that's that's what he wanted so you can start getting all i'm not saying which one i'm not saying who yeah but rhymes with not saying and i love them as much as the others just not as much that night so i i'm not saying who but um i started to feel angry and anxious and upset and and uh disappointed and all these legitimate we would say legitimate emotions but they would have robbed that interaction and created friction with that child and made it hard to fall asleep that night and ruin the rest of the week instead you take a couple deep breaths and you say buddy you're the guy teaching the amunisher just uh you got to practice what you preach so what's the answer it's from hashem come on david rahman everything hashem does is for a reason now that doesn't mean a child shouldn't be more careful in the future doesn't mean it shouldn't come out of her but it doesn't mean that men that doesn't mean that there aren't consequences but it means that whatever consequences there are whatever file you have to claim you have to file whatever you have to do you do it with a smile because it was meant to be because if hashem didn't want it to happen it wouldn't have happened if you wanted her to see that curb if he wanted to not have an impact on the car if we wanted it to not be hanging down if he wanted all those other things then it wouldn't have happened if it happened that happened for a reason so we learn and we are accountable and we correct our mistakes but while we do it we're not brought down which is exactly what vichamir has been telling us that the tzara works because it tries to knock us down it tries to bring us down it tries to convince us we're unworthy we're incapable it tries to get us angry or anxious it tries to get us to lose our cool a rage it tries to get us to react in ways which will sabotage our own success so the people around us are not acting the way we want the way we wish they're not making the decisions that conform with what we dream for them we do the best we can to convince them we try to be as compelling and persuade them we do the best that we can to react to them with thoughtfulness and strategically but we can't rob us of our happiness and it can't make us not realize and believe that everything's for a reason it's all from above it's all from hashem you could get rejected 150 times by 150 jobs by 150 prospective dates by 150 attempts to persuade someone to keep ray getting rejected but it's all for a reason we can't let it bring us down smile and we'll find that we can be happy in the meantime i have us on page kuffman test 159 yay acid we talked about when we get despondent and despair hopeless because of the past when we get brought down by the past i failed i came up short i was incomplete i didn't fulfill my mission i got angry at my children i reacted to my spouse i didn't achieve what i set out to do in whatever area of healthy living in my healthy lifestyle or in my spiritual pursuit so the atari doesn't look at how far we went yitzhara looks at how short we came and that's what it focuses on getting us to give up and going forward and we have to overcome that voice celebrate the small successes we talked about the micro mitzvahs and the micro successes you have to celebrate the small victories and sometimes they sahara this evil inclination this voice of self-sabotage sometimes it's methodology the way it works is it tries to get us to be hopeless and to despair to be sad not about the past not because we came up short or failed but about how us did the future going on it doesn't get us to focus on where we came up short or what wrong in the past it gets us to give up hope in the future you have no hope what kind of future why bother why try why set this goal why have that conversation why revisit that relationship it's never going to work why are you trying to overcome that urge at a meeting recently with a group of guys who are fighting certain instinct and impulsiveness and compulsive behavior so the whole methodology of the eight sahara works is okay so you don't look at that website you didn't look at that app you didn't watch that thing now but we all know you're going to again sometime so you had the strength to turn the channel you had the strength to x out you had the strength to turn it off right now but why bother because even if you turn it off right now so tomorrow or next week or next month or next year you're gonna be back here it's gonna happen again so why bother who are you fooling who are you kidding why give up the pleasure of this moment and that can be true when we're trying to practice shmir sinaim we're trying to guard our eyes and only look at images which will elevate it can be true when it comes to whatever other goal that we've set whether it's health and wellness eating and exercise whether it's patience and love for others whether it's generosity whether whatever area whether it's kavanagh whether it's our davening or the brachas that we make yetzaro works and he says come on you can't keep this up forever you had a great shimon ashrae sitter snippets were only up almost up to schmonastery i'm gonna do a big blitz a big campaign change your amiida one brock at a time we're almost up to the amidah i'm very excited for it for myself could use a little boost so what's gonna happen you're about to diamond you take your three steps forward and you say this is it this is my amidah i'm going to nail it and i have kavanagh i'm going to concentrate for all 19 brachas i got it this is my shimano esrae and then the atari kicks in and says who are you kidding never happened never will happen and even if it happens now it's not going to happen tomorrow you can't keep this up so don't bother now that's the methodology of the atari why are you trying to have cavanaugh why are you bothering for the first barack obama yesterday you know your mind is going to wander by the third or fourth you know you'll be in the supermarket or the gym or you'll be thinking about your children or your in-laws you'll be thinking about the work you have to do with the email you have to respond to you know by the third raka shawna esrei your mind is going to be taking you to what probably are your best thoughts of the whole day but you're going to be somewhere else other than where you're meant to be i keep a little i have little note cards i keep in my pocket and i have a pen and whenever a thought comes to me throughout the day or at night it doesn't work in the shower but during davening i write it down it could be in the middle of schweinsteig and i have a great idea for the sheer for the drusha or i want to email or check in on someone or i have a thought about something i stop i write it down i get it out of my head so now i can concentrate because otherwise it takes up your brain now is competing your brain is conflicted your brain is trying to and you know the older you get the more white you have in your beard the harder it is to hold those memories so you had a thought and if you don't do something about it in that moment it could be gone forever so carry something so you can capture that thought and then you can get back to what you're doing i do it it may seem rude i could be in the middle of conversation with someone i say hold on one second i write it down so i want to concentrate fully on our conversation this thought because what we were talking about if you're trying to be nice or in general this thought came to my head i don't want it to be distracting me and i don't want to be fighting to hold on to it while i'm talking to you so let me capture it let me write it down and now i don't have to worry about it it's there so now i can fully be present in whatever else i'm meant to be doing whether it's talking to someone or talking to him anyway that's just an aside and it is a suggestion so how does the atari work itara says ah you can't keep this up so you took upon yourself not to speak loshanhara and everyone chooses that hour i take the 3am slot not to speak leshana everyone chooses whatever they're working on so are you really going to keep that up so why bother now you got some juicy good stuff and you want to tell to someone so you're fighting it no don't don't don't give in to that urge don't say that thing but then your yates are kicks in it says you're just going to tell them later you're just going to call them tomorrow you can't keep this up so you might as well do it now and you know what the answer the antidote is you know what our power is our power is to be in the present don't get stuck in the past it will debilitate and paralyze you it'll beat you up and knock you down it'll make you feel inadequate it'll make you feel invisible and don't get lost in the future it's not yet here don't live some predetermined life some fatalistic life don't get lost in your dreams and aspirations they're not yet here and don't get lost in your stresses and anxieties and worries it's not yet here all you have is the present all there is is today all there is is right now all there is is this moment that is the only only moment that matters because that's all we have that's all we have so many people are living in the past they forfeit the present so many people are lost in the future they forfeit the present but the president is the only dimension we can live in it's the only one we can impact it's the only one that we have and it's the way we overcome that yet sahara yet sahara i don't care about yesterday we came up with a good slogan we're working on our notebooks i don't care about yesterday yesterday was yesterday so yeah i got to take my father's car to the shop to the honda dealership and i got to replace the bumper and maybe i got to babysit a little bit to pay it off okay that was yesterday but i don't care about yesterday so i wasn't paying attention it wasn't my best self it wasn't my guest's best moment so what it was yesterday mo da ani thank you hashem for a new day i've turned the page it's a blank page it's a new page all i have is today how am i going to fill my page what will it say today what it said yesterday it's yesterday and what am i going to look at tomorrow's page i'm not up to tomorrow yet i can't influence tomorrow i can't impact tomorrow all we have is today that is the answer that is the antidote our power is to live in the present that is how we overcome the etzara yitzar says you're a garnish because of yesterday you will be a gornish tomorrow so give up on today and our answer is are you crazy i don't know what we'll be tomorrow and you know what about yesterday but i have right now i have today our moments are disconnected from one another they don't have to overlap and intersect we're allowed to draw a line between them and say that wasn't my most shiny moment you know when i just flew off the handle you know and i just raged when i walked into the house because the toys were all over the floor and dinner wasn't ready yet and i'm in the bad mood because i had a bad day and you know i flipped out because i walked in and the kid didn't say hello to me that wasn't my best self so everyone let's try this again we're going to take it from the top i'm going to walk out the front door i'm coming back in and take it from the top ah the fact that i just blew my lid a minute ago i just okay so what what does that have to do with right now every moment is a new moment every hour is a new hour every day is a new day and they don't have to be connected to create a narrative of what my life is our power is to be in the present our power is to embrace the right now the here and now and to overcome that yet zara that tries to get me stuck yesterday in the itahar that tries to get me lost in tomorrow and to say i'm not listening to either of you because all i'm living in is right now my power is in the present you know what tomorrow i may fail again and yesterday i fell on my face but if right now i could stand strong it's all worth it if right now i have a shining moment of right now i live a better or best self if right now i make the right choice do you know what that does to the cosmos do you know what that does to the universe do you know what that does to the world we discussed on behind the bhima last week with rabbi mark wilds my good friend the founder of mj manhattan jewish experience we discussed how you define success and outreach in key roof it's a fascinating discussion what's the value you put on outreach what's the cost of acquiring a new observant jew it's an interesting question what's the value what's the cost what's worth it and how do you define success so he invoked you know what's the chabad definition based on the balatanya got a flurry of emails from who weighed in it was a fascinating discussion i'm grateful for it grateful for the conversation it's fascinating if you don't listen it's worth listening and uh so one of the one of the possibilities based on the tanya based on very mystical thinking is that every mitzvah is of inestimable value every mitzvah we do moves the cosmos impacts the universe you get a judah like candles you get a jew to put on fillin if they never did anything before and they never do anything after but that moment of that mitzvah that they did you have no idea what it does for this world you don't know what it does for their soul you don't know you don't know the merit that it brings down and what it does for this world we tend to forget that because we live in this world where it's invisible it's invisible so we don't see we can't connect those dots we don't understand the impact but we believe it does the butterfly what rabbi sacks allah called the butterfly effect of virtue there's a butterfly effect in physics that a butterfly flaps its wings in tunisia and there's a hurricane in south florida in the world of physics they found that correlation a butterfly flaps its wings halfway around the world and what it sets in motion through flapping its wings can lead to a tsunami in thailand in the world of physics they found that correlation survey sax took that expression that term and coined the expression the butterfly effect of virtue we have no idea when we flap our our mitzvah wings the little mitzvah you did the little mitzvah you did to help another person to care about to notice another person the little mitzvah you did to hashem so you concentrated on your first brock of the day aboard we have to make a hundred bucks a day but we caffeinate with kavanagh at least you get the first that wasn't my first cup of coffee first brocco of the day but that first broke of the day caffeinated with cavanaugh so what if the other 99 my mind is elsewhere what if i don't even say the other 99 because i forget to make abraca but so what i just flapped my wings for this shahakal who knows what that means or what that will do who knows what it means or does for the people i care about in their merit i make this bracha who knows what it does for this world or this universe who knows what it does for my soul or my progeny who knows if it means that my next kid won't knock off a fender in the merit of the shahakal by the way i'm not at all bitter about this just a bit just to be clear yeah bailey is correct the most important thing is she was safe hashem that is the most important thing so so who knows the butterfly effect of virtue of the mitzvos that we do of its investable so that's the answer to the eight sahara the izara says clown you fool you izwarf yesterday were you a failure tomorrow you're gonna be a failure yesterday you couldn't get it done tomorrow you're not gonna get it done how many times are you gonna set out to achieve that goal and come up so short you barely came out of the starting gate and you know what our answer is matters for this one who cares we talked about that on the in the podcast my fact checker corrected me i said it was a jellyfish but it was a starfish you all know the story of the young boy walking on the beach there are thousands millions of starfish that are washed up on the beach and he's throwing back in the ocean an old man comes up to him and he says young man little boy look around look how many starfish are all over this beach do you really think it makes a difference what you're doing you know what he did picked up the next starfish he threw it in and he said it made a difference to that one it made a difference to that one same thing you neglected doing mitzvahs your whole life you haven't had kavanagh once on one bracha and you'll never do a mitzvah again you can't make you're not going to have kavanagh one more but you had kavanagh on this it made a difference on this one this dollar that you gave this kindness that you showed this generosity that you exhibited this mitzvah that you did with kavanagh who knows that's the answer in the antidote to the etsar our power is by living in the present bless you shayne kesher there is no connection between one moment another shift allah said that our longing our goal for the future what is the what does tomorrow have to do with today now tomorrow has an enormous amount to do with today i'm speaking many times over shivuas i can't wait till shibuyas to think about what i'm going to say i have to be thinking all week what do i need to get done when which day which shear which drasha which of our torah when does it all need to get done how will it all get done and then you could breathe easy and how do you schedule all it so tomorrow of course is very important for today if you're planning a simcha if you have something that you need to get done you can't just wake up that day shibuyas is a three-day yantef that's six meals that's how many meals at least six meals many more meals obviously i'm not the one preparing the meals that's a lot of meals you can't wake up friday afternoon and say oh shibuyas what should we eat we'll have cheerios for lunch fruity pebbles for dinner and peanut butter and bread for the lunch tomorrow you can't wake up it's too late so tomorrow has an impact only in as much as what does it inform today the present right now i have to think about tomorrow but i'm not thinking about tomorrow because i'm worried about tomorrow in other words i can't spend today yoma muchas this wednesday i can't think about today what if i don't give a good cheer on friday night on shabbos on sunday what if it doesn't go well would i want to say the right thing what if nobody shows up what if the source sheets don't what am i worrying about tomorrow that'll take away from what my job is today that'll take away from my opportunity and privilege today that takes away from the gift of today i forfeit today if i'm fearful of tomorrow all i have and the only place i can live the only dimension i live in is today is this moment my power is by being in the present so i think about the past because i learn from it for the present and i consider the future because i prepare for it in the present but the only dimension i live in or care about is the present and so you got to check yourself we always often have to keep checking ourselves and evaluating ourselves and looking in the virtual mirror of ourselves and saying am i am i in the past in a productive way or am i in the past because i'm persevering am i thinking about the future in a productive way that's informing my present or am i lost in my future in a way which is making me anxious and worried and fearful and upset and hurting my present i have to constantly all day be checking ourselves because that's the voice of the eight sahara and the voice of the atahara that's what we learned last time the reason the voice of the eights are as effective as it says what do you mean you're a righteous jew of course you have to take stock of the past you have to take inventory that makes you righteous so richard meyer pointed out no it doesn't makes you righteous if thinking about the past makes you better in the present but if thinking about the past only makes you beat yourself up for the past only makes you filled with regret for the past only makes you knock yourself down for the past only makes you feel guilt and shame for the past then that's the eight sahara that's not the atov yetzer hatov involves the past only in as much as it informs the present but if the yates are if the if the inclination about the past is knocking you down and beating you up and knocking you over and making you feel bad and filling you with regret and shame and guilt then it's the eight zahara not yet zeratov says it just confuses you and it blends everything together the past the present the future it's wrong our mission and our mandate every moment should be filled with clinging to and connecting with hashem hashem rebona shalom what do you want me to be doing in this moment all that matters is this moment what am i meant to be doing now what's next in my life that's it what will bring me closer to you what will help me better connect to your brand what will make me more successful in promoting your name the almighty is our loving father every moment of every day he makes a new opening for us to connect to him every moment of every day of our lives is an invitation from hashem draw a line in the card turn the page start again so what less so what just now was not your shiny moment so what you looked at the wrong thing you said the wrong thing you ate the wrong thing so what so what learn from it and change it all we have is right now this moment he loves us he's a loving father the door is always open as parents no matter how disappointed we may be in a child no matter how much tension or friction they may be there is the door not always open is the line of communication not always open is there not an open invitation it's okay let's start again come back let's try this from the top as our venus our loving father the same is true so what we felt so what we were distance so what we came up short so what our power is by living in the present returning to the present uh and when we succeed in overcoming and we successfully live one moment the way we're meant to we're mindful of if we can live with mindfulness if we can live in this present we will see the way the world opens up for us more and more and more gambalos every inclination every instinct every positive gesture bid for connection it means the world to hashem the butterfly effect not only of our action but even of our intent even of our intent the butterfly effect of our mindfulness and our intent why is he invoking this here of achimer this chapter is called simcha we're learning all about happiness and joy we're learning that happiness is a decision not an emotion happiness is by connecting with the shleimas of hashem so why is he talking about this here why is he talking about this now the answer is this is the formula for happiness if you want to live basim be in the present if you're stuck in the past how are you happy the past is filled for everybody because there is no perfect person ain't adam there's no one on the earth who doesn't make mistakes there is no perfect person so the more we think about the past the more we're depleted and robbed of our happiness in the present because we'll be filled with shame there are things we're ashamed of mistakes we've made things that we could should be ashamed of there's regret regret is an overwhelmingly painful emotion if only i'd made a different decision what would the trajectory be today what would the outcome how would it be different there are people financially who made investments or who bought things who they look back i'm not talking about jackie mason every jew has a building in manhattan they could have owned i'm talking about there are people who created financial ruin for themselves and they're stuck in regret for the poor decision they made they're people in a relationship they made a decision a moment a moment of temptation and they destroyed their life a moment of anger or rage and they hurt someone around them there's so much regret if we're stuck in the past and regret is debilitating it's depleting it's paralyzing regret knocks us down guilt not the healthy guilt where we acknowledge wrongdoing so we can learn from it and move on but the unhealthy jewish guilt that just drags us down and makes us feel bad and thinks that we're meant to be miserable all the time and feel unworthy these are horrific no who said these are good qualities these are not virtues these are not virtues even if they seeped into our jewish culture they're terrible and they're undermining and sabotaging our success they're all part of the past get out break out because it's causing us to forfeit our present and the same is true with future we're so stuck in being anxious and worried about the future we're so stuck in being worried about things we can't control and we can't change because they're not here yet and all this time what we're giving up is our happiness in the present people who can't sleep and they're grinding their teeth at night and they can't eat and they're living on edge and they have such tension and they're overreacting to people and they have no sem there's no joy for life because they're living with regret and shame about the past they're living with fear and anxiety about the future so there's no joy or happiness in the present and then it becomes a self-fulfilled prophecy because if you have no simple saccharine who wants to be around you so you have such regret about the past and fear about the future and you want to get married but you find yourself so single because you have no sympathetic you know it's an incredibly attractive quality you know what's really attractive happiness happiness is really attractive you know what's really unattractive guilt shame misery regret worry anxiety fear i don't know that repels me away that's not attractive it's attractive when you're happy when you stay calm and carry on and you let go and let god when every other bumper sticker i can tell you right now i really cliche that's what's that's what's attractive so we can change the course of our reality by living in the present and choosing not being a victim or a martyr of our circumstance but choosing and making the choice who we are and how we want to live that simcha is the source of success the joy for life have a default of happiness of joy of a smile but how could you be happy remember i've said you're only as happy as your least happy child someone sent me an email you shouldn't say that it makes your least happy child feel bad you're not happy maybe true maybe that's a sensitivity maybe it's an over sensitivity i don't know i think it makes your child feel good that if they're not happy you're not happy i don't know if it makes them feel bad i think it makes them feel good so i don't feel bad about it i just decided i don't feel bad about it but anyway but anyway no the point is that you could be happy so your child is unhappy or struggling but show your child we're going to do everything we can we're going to take all the action that we can but you know we're not going to let it rob us of our happiness so we're dealing with whatever circumstance there are people dealing with incredibly challenging difficult overwhelming unfair circumstances good you do everything you can to change it and then the things that you can't change about it you don't let rob you of your happiness a joy for life it's the best medicine to overcome whatever crisis one's facing it gives us the strength and the energy and the fortitude and the resilience that we will need to overcome whatever it is that we're confronting whatever it is that coming our way so the reason vichemia is talking all about this here the present as opposed to the past and the future is because the best way to be able to live bisimra is to live in the present by being in the present if you're in the past of the future it's very hard to be present to be to be in the present all i have is right now that's all i have is the here and now all i have is this moment in this moment i'm making the choice to be happy and now i have whatever it takes to overcome whatever is going to come my way wishing everyone a great yantif tonight first we go behind the bema with ruby barrel wine great rob the great author the great historian looking forward to that conversation uh those who are here physically are invited to remain starting a new uh tihillam a short tehillum gathering right after the municipal wednesday mornings for este moscow chestertila basareal among all you stroll all those who are ill should have a speedy a painless and a full refuga next time stay happy stay healthy stay holy stay happy