Ten Minutes of Meaning (Part 205): Don't Believe the Hype - Mesillas Yesharim

welcome good morning Bookers welcome back to 10 minutes of meeting please help yourself to coffee and donuts a big thank you to our generous responses for the year Anonymous remain very grateful they obviously know who they are and we're very grateful to them we are at the end of Perico the end of chapter 23 of missile has been walking us through this formula this path towards a better and better version of ourselves living with mindfulness and Zeal and alacrity how to cleanse and Purge ourselves of the indulgences and The Temptations that distract us and not sabotage us how to acquire the proper conduct which will enrich and Empower our relationships and living our best selves living our best lives and we are up to paragraph gimmel we've been talking about how to acquire the attribute the character trait of another how to live with modesty and humility because arrogance an inflated ego a distorted sense of self is what interferes with success in life professionally it sabotages our ambition interpersonally our marriage our parenting our friendships they all suffer when our ego gets in the way when we think in charge we think we're in control we think we deserve honor whenever the ego gets in the way we can't have a relationship with Hashem with others and we're not having a very true or honest relationship with ourselves so the ramachal ends we're at the very end we've been speaking about Anova for a long time but there are Mahala ends is 23rd chapter buried deep in Mississippi this is not the first attribute or quality to work on a person needs time person has to make progress in the other areas before they can genuinely work on this and he ends by saying what are the factors that lead to the loss of humility what are the detractors from humility who is one of the biggest things that interferes with humility is to believe the hype all of us in life we live in an olum Shaker we're living in a world that's backwards upside down inside out and it's filled with lies and distortions technology has been a great gift to us in many ways but social media and Technology perhaps is the biggest Arena where things are backwards and upside down and inside out where a person thinks their worth is somehow intertwined with their followers or likes or with the amount of how viral they've gone and the khanifa the level of khanifa flattery and false flattery that happens offline and online that people want to get ahead in the world of Politics the khanifa professionally to get ahead to acquire customers and clients and to get a bigger chunk of business the amount of hanifa the false flattery people all around us they're flattering us we're flattering them there's a game the better you are at the game supposedly the better you do in life says maybe in some measures and metrics you'll get ahead but the more you're engrossed in this game a false flattery offering it and receiving it the more of a lot of a world of lies that you are living in in and it undermines a life of meaning a life of purpose that undermines genuine and real relationships so he says if you want to be humble don't believe the hype even when people say nice things even when people Lord and praise even when people compliment you can receive a compliment there's a gracious way to receive a compliment but if people overly praise understand there's often an agenda in the um commentary says when a person offers false flattery when a person exaggerates in their praise be all you're amazing that was amazing oh you're fantastic oh this is great you're great everything is great oh you are the best when a person exaggerates in their praise when they're offering false flattery it's because there's an agenda there's a goal they want to gain or get something out of it so don't be a fool cool don't accept it don't buy into it don't believe it here's where having a good spouse and children can come in very handy to keep one grounded but this is the biggest deterrent the biggest impediment to living a life of humility is to start to believe the hype and it happens that times they attribute to a person the opposite of what you really possessed no matter how smart no matter how brilliant no matter how accomplished any of us are we easily fall prey to false flattery feels good someone Strokes the ego someone says something nice someone makes you feel good rather than sit back and analyze and say is that accurate is it true do they know the demons do they know the struggles the battles that I face or the exaggerating instead we most often are Miss Patel were seduced kosher and all the more so when it comes to something that we really possessed when someone who we trust someone who we think has something intelligent to say flatters us we easily believe it enters us like it penetrates like the Venom like the poison of an enraged snake the nimsa nofa barisha sagaba the nishbar and it finds us ensnared in a net of haughtiness and broken so it's Kryptonite it corrupts it contaminates it undermines don't believe the hype don't believe what someone's saying don't believe exaggerations don't buy into false praise it can unfamily someone's positioning you they're setting you up in business socially politically person should stay humble person should remember their faults and their failures in their struggles doesn't mean beat ourselves up excessively of course we should also understand our talents and our skills and our blessings and take pride in them but not for the overly prideful not of a distorted sense of who we are and not believe the hype of that others suggests you have the example of Yosh who acted righteously during all the days he was being instructed by yahu yadav his teacher emotion is his servants his slaves all came and they wanted to position themselves they wanted a great cabinet position they wanted to be appointed to a position of Distinction so how do you do that you don't go and say how worthy you are you go and say did I tell you how brilliant and what a leader you are and how incredible you are how amazing you are to try to earn and buy favor and you can buy favor the cost the currency of buying favor is you see so many people who had such potential to make such a difference in this world at whatever level within the family within the community and within society and within business who ultimately undermine their own trajectory of success because they believe the hype because they swell with arrogance and with pride because they have a distorted and inflated View and version of themselves and I would say an extra word of caution for the ramachal applied in our time and in our day is not only what other people can falsely and accurately with exaggeration praise us but the whole institution of social media is a world in which people carefully curate only the best versions of themselves we end up falsely praising ourselves by presenting a carefully curated version that doesn't reflect the truth and the accuracy and essentially that's the version We Believe or buy into of ourselves we end up very unhappy remember reading an article several years ago there was a couple who went viral they were famous online because they would travel the world and they would post their vacation their travel pictures their travel Journey the travel Vlog and they had Fame and likely often with it Fortune because of the uh how viral they went traveling and it was an article that said that they were taking a break from their travels to resolve their likely impending divorce and to treat their depression and misery because while what was presented online was carefully curated as the best life the best airline rides and the best desserts and meals and the best vacation spots and the best hikes and the best and the best and the best and the joy and the happiness and the success offline was misery and emptiness and depression offline was a struggling relationship likely exacerbated by the carefully curated presentation and profile online we shouldn't believe what we're presenting about ourselves let alone what other people try to highlight or Lord or praise us for we should have an accurate view of who we are and not buy into that hype accurate both in understanding our talents and our skills and our blessings that are on loan from Hashem and we're supposed to use in our mission and service of him and also realistic seeing the whole picture not only the parts we want to but seeing the whole profile including the ugly the pimples and the warts including the shortcomings and the struggles to give us this holistic picture which will prevent us and protect us from ever swelling with too much pride or with arrogance we'll finish this para commits Hashem next week and pick up with the next Meda in this formula of the ramshara and that is how to live with fear of sin very appropriate for the time which we find ourselves living with the moon in 15 minutes tonight behind the bema with a slovy young Grace wolf until next time stay happy stay healthy and stay holy