Why Do We Ignore Those Who Suffer In Silence?

Hi, this is Dovid Orlofsky, with  a question and answer series. We   in in a few minutes we try to answer  a reader's questions. This question,   it's it's not the way I would phrase anything.  So, that's why in case anybody ever thinks I   make up these questions, trust me, I never would  have written something like this. Why do we seem   so fake? A girl says, "I'm depressed." Ooh, ah,  now she's a celebrity. And a kid who suffers   silently or even life, shush. Okay, I'm going to  try to translate that into English. [laughter]   And I understand the question. [clears throat]  The question is something that is innate to the   system. In education, they say 10% of the kids get  90% of the time. When I was in uh Chofetz Chaim,   uh a fellow said to me, "I think I'm going to  kill myself." I said, "Why?" He says, "Cuz I   can't think of any other way to get an appointment  with the Rosh Yeshiva." So, if if you're ready to   kill yourself, then he'll make time to see you.  And there's so many people vying for his time.   The vernacular expression for this is the wheel  that squeaks gets oiled. And the one who draws   more attention to themselves are the ones who are  going to get that time. When I was in education,   um I I'll tell you a terrible story when I was in  NCSY. Um this mother called me up with a kid who   was going off the derech. He wasn't off yet, but  he was on his way. And I don't know what to do.   Every organization that I call says, "When he's  on the street, give us a call." After he's already   lost, calls up and then we deal with him. But a  kid who's going off, it doesn't make any sense.   We can't waste our time. Now, in English they say  an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.   I don't know what the uh metric experience  equivalent of that is, but you get the idea.   You know, 100 g is equal to kilo. I don't know.  But um but what it means is the amount of effort   necessary to stop a kid from going off the  derech is a lot less than bringing him back.   In the chazal, we say it differently. Says,  "If you unload the donkey before it collapses,   it only takes one person. But once it's collapsed,  it takes 10 people to get it back up." So,   there's no question that the people who, as  you say, you know, who and on and and carry on,   they tend to get the most attention. My years in  education, I always tried, as much as possible,   to put my focus on the normal good kids who need  chizuk. And so much could be done by giving people   chizuk instead of waiting till the till the donkey  collapses, until waiting until there's a crisis.   Deal with things beforehand. I mentioned this  uh on a podcast uh long time ago. And that is   Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of  Highly Effective People, he says,   "There's four types of decisions that you  make. There's uh important and urgent,   i.e. your car broke down. There's important and  not urgent, i.e. servicing your car. There's uh   there's urgent and not important, that's the phone  ringing. And there's not important and not urgent.   That's reading all the email jokes that people  send you. Okay, for me it's already professional   activity, so okay. I have a different  motivation when I listen to jokes cuz I   never know where I'm going to need one to be able  to to put it in cuz that's my brand, you know. But   it's doing nothing, it's wedging, you know  what I mean? Playing solitaire on the computer,   okay? That's that's not important and not urgent,  yeah. So, he says, "If you look at the way people   spend their time, most of their time is spent  on urgent, whether it's important or not."   I was at a regional director's conference that  took weeks to organize. Um people flew in from   around the country, everybody was there, and  the national director's sitting there. We had   an agenda, we had gone back and forth to decide  what would be on the agenda cuz we understood   everyone's time is limited and important. And all  of a sudden the secretary pops her head in and   says to the national director, "You have a phone  call." And he goes out to get his phone call. And   I thought to myself, "What are the odds that that  phone call is more important than this conference   that you spent all the time organizing?"  But it doesn't matter because it's urgent.   The phone ringing is urgent. I would be talking to  somebody in my house and the phone would ring. So,   today there are answering machines, today  there's uh caller ID, there's all kinds of   ways of figuring out. Back then that was it.  You missed the phone call, you'd have to then   call everybody you know in the world to see  if it was them, you know, there was no way.   And I'm talking to somebody and the phone rings.  And that's why there used to be this sense, "It's   the phone! Get the phone!" People are jumping  over furniture, running to get the phone, yeah.   Anyway, I'm talking to this person and the  phone rings. And the person says to me,   "Aren't you going to get that?" I said, "I'm  talking to a real-life human being. Why would I   leave you to go and answer a phone when this  person may not be any more important than you?"   I mean, I'm not expecting a call from the  president. I'm not expecting a call from the prime   minister. I'm not expecting, you know, any major,  you know, uh thing. My wife is right here. If if   she's not expecting, as far as I know, but if she  has a baby, I'm sure she'll come out and tell me,   you know. What what What do I need to run for the  phone? But it's urgent, cuz the phone is ringing.   I was waiting online at the butcher. This is 35  years ago. I'm waiting online at the butcher,   and there's a big long line. It's before  Hag. And uh the phone keeps ringing,   and he keeps answering the phone and taking  phone orders. But we're here. So, eventually,   I went outside to a payphone, and I called up. He  answered the phone right away. I gave my order,   and he says, "You want to deliver?" I said, "No,  come I pick it up." I came back, and got online.   When I got up to the desk, I said, "I think I  have an order." He says, "Oh, yeah, sure." And   he gave it to me. Because the phone ringing is  urgent. So, he says, "If you think about the most   important things you can do in your life, there  are things that are important and not urgent.   So, if you serviced your car, which is important  but not urgent, then it wouldn't have broken down,   and you wouldn't have ended up with a  crisis." Rabbi Odewak told me that the doctor   uh told him he has to exercise for his health.  And he went through his day, and he says, "Where?"   And the doctor said And he said, "The doctor  said to me, 'You're too busy not to exercise.   Because if you don't exercise, and you get sick,  you're going to lose a lot more time than if   you spend that time now taking care of yourself.  So, I'm a big believer in um working with people   who are not that 10% who get 90% of the time. They  the nice normal kid who falls through the cracks   cuz nobody's paying attention to them. In my mind,  that person definitely deserves the majority of   the time. I think 90% of our time should be spent  on 90% of the kids and not on 10% of the kids.   That's my opinion. If there are people  who have special specific problems,   there are organizations and people who  specialize on people with problems. But,   how come a regular normal person doesn't get the  attention they need? I think this is a terrible   problem that needs to be solved. This is Dovid  Orlofsky with our question and answer series.