Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability

As always, on Thursday night the question gnaws at me..what are you posting about? the voices ask.. as i was falling into the land of nod i had a few idea yet of course now that i sit to put pen to paper..i have no blessed clue..

regardless, yesterday my extended family all took on a personal fast. A beloved member of the family is very ill, so in the zechut of his refuah shelaimah we fasted. It is an amazing thing. On a regular day,when i get hungry i must get food in me asap. I cannot concentrate. I cannot work. I get nauseous. In short, bad things happen so i make sure to get food. But on a fast day. it is different. Yes, i got hungry. But when food is not an option..you push past the hunger and do you do what you have to do anyway. Soon you get lost in your work and the hunger pains die away.

Mi'kamcha Yisrael. When it comes to my diet i am not so disciplined. The things that i want to eat but i shouldn't do not become non-options rather they become worse options yet at the same time still retaining their status as options. The only times when i really did well was when i actually mentally completely removed all that stuff as options. Only then did it work. But as long its a possibility..its a possibility ( profound i know). If i am walking by a McDonald's..no matter how hungry i may be, or how in the mood for fries i am..it is not an option. There is no internal struggle. I just walk by. I may comment on how good it smells (that's usually by a steak house not McD) or how hungry i am..but to actually walk in..NOT AN OPTION.

This leads to the obvious nekuda of your point of Bechira. R' Desller is famous for using this concept. We all have our points where we have our struggles. For a person who is recently becoming frum, the McD may be a real struggle. For a recovering alcoholic, whether or not to have that second beer is a conflict. Someone who has decided that movies are not for him, may be really tempted to zone out after a really hard day.

I think that the only way to make this thing no longer a temptation is to make it no longer an option. As free, diverse people who in our essence are bochrim (bochrim not bachurim just making that clear) we revel in the choices that modern society gives us. But as with any freedom, there lies the danger of it being abused. We have so many choices and we like the fact that we have these choices. But we do not always choose correctly.  We need to limit our choices to give focus and structure back to our lives. If everything is always an option then decorum and discipline go out the window.

So how do you focus yourself? How do we limit our own freedom to become the person that we want to be? Is it liberating or limiting to put restrictions on ourselves? Is the risk worth it?How do you decide what to limit and how?

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 28, 2011 at 2:17 PM

    First of all, the person should have a Refuah shelaima!

    Now,those are things that I would speak over with a mashpia / mentor. Someone who knows you and can help you make these important decision.

    Also, its funny that you separate 'bachurim' and 'bochrim'. The concept of the word bachur is bochor. The reason being that first of all, that is the time when someone has the time to sit and learn. Also when it comes to a situation where something in yidishkeit has to be fixed, it is usually the bachurim who stand up first and make a big deal out of it. (at least thats what happens in the type of environment im from)

    BTW, an idea. U may have done something like this already. Last year there was someone in the family who R"L was diagnosed with "yena machla". So we had the whole tehillim divided up between all family members so that every day the entire tehhilim would be finished in his zechus. He is BH better now, and on his way to a complete recovery.

    Life On A Cotton Ball: How Do You Say...

    ReplyDelete
  2. aminspirationJanuary 28, 2011 at 3:19 PM

    thanks for the idea, we are already doing that..

    as for the bachurim/bochrim thing. i meant bochrim as in bechira. Rabbi Brown always says that we do not have bechira..we ARE BOCHRIM! Meaning it is who we are not what we have

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJanuary 28, 2011 at 3:33 PM

    I understood that that is what u meant. I was just saying that the whole idea of the word bachurim is that they are the bochrim.

    About tehilim. This shabbos is shabbos mevorchim. Its is customary by some to finish the entire tehillim over the course of tomorrow (or any such shabbos) About doing that, the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe said that finishing tehillim on shabbos mevorchim brings bracha to you, your kids, and your kids kids.
    Just thought i"d share. If u want I can keep the name in mind during tehillim tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
  4. aminspirationJanuary 28, 2011 at 3:38 PM

    thanks so much, the name is asher ben gohar.
    Really appreciate it! and sorry for the misunderstanding.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJanuary 28, 2011 at 4:03 PM

    NP. He should have a refua shelaimah!

    ReplyDelete
  6. aminspirationJanuary 28, 2011 at 4:06 PM

    Amen!

    ReplyDelete
  7. FeistyFrummyJanuary 30, 2011 at 2:06 PM

    Refuah shelayma!
    It's funny that you mention this because I was just having a dicussion about this with my friends. It was kind of debate between getting rid cold turkey of all my nisyonot in life or facing them all head on. It seems that getting rid of them is the best way, which is basically like what you're saying: remove the option. Though, I'm still trying to figure out how to do so practically. Like for instance the internet is addicting. I can't just get rid of it. What's a girl like me to do? Let me know if you have any ideas. I'd be very curious to hear what you have to say. You seem to have a very good head on your shoulders. :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. aminspirationJanuary 30, 2011 at 2:20 PM

    getting off the net?
    man that is a hard one..my laptops net went down last week and im not dealing well..so im not really one to ask..but for objective advice? the net isnt really something you can quite cold turkey i think..

    i mean i use it for connection with my friends who dont live near me..so thats not something that im looking to cut from my net usage. But if its the youtube/facebook that you are trying to cut..then you must must must replace it with something else otherwise it wont last long. you have to fill the void otherwise you'll feel the void and then you'll fall back into it. We dont like feeling empty..so replace one action with another that you feel that will bring you to the person you want to be..

    ReplyDelete
  9. AnonymousJanuary 30, 2011 at 3:32 PM

    Personally, not being on the net isnt thaat bad. In yeshiva we had 0 access. I would get on once a month or so.
    In general, im for taking on issues and working on them. Obviously if it is something really assur, that cant be done. But by the things that it can be, I find it to be the best way. For example, when TV came out, all rabbonim were against it. However the Lubavitcher Rebbe realized the great potential that TV can have. All the farbrengins were broadcast live on TV thereby allowing people who would have never had access to a farbrengin to participate in one. But, the Rebbe still did not want his chassidim to have TV's in their homes, as a TV has bad in it. That didnt stop him however from taking advantage of the great potential that was in it.
    BTW by 'post a comment', you should add a space between the 'please leave a comment' and 'or just'..

    ReplyDelete
  10. Primum Non NocereJanuary 30, 2011 at 4:05 PM

    I'm sure that both aminspiration and The Professor intended to close by saying that if you do indeed decide to go cold turkey on the internet, we hope you'll make an exception when it comes to reading our blogs. :-P

    Refuah sheleymah to your relative, aminspiration!


    Primum Non Nocere: Revamp the Shidduch System #2

    ReplyDelete
  11. aminspirationJanuary 30, 2011 at 4:08 PM

    Once your off the net you get used to it,it works when its not an option (which was precisely my point)

    there is always good but its not usually worth the risk for the bad..

    ( and thanks for the tip)

    ReplyDelete
  12. aminspirationJanuary 30, 2011 at 4:10 PM

    PNN- lol..good point but if Feisty decided to go off the net..then i dont think my blog is worth staying on for..ill snail mail em to her...if she really wants to read em that badly..

    ReplyDelete
  13. seo careerAugust 15, 2011 at 7:33 AM

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  14. aminspirationAugust 15, 2011 at 10:43 AM

    thanks seo- thanks for stopping by!and welcome

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

you know what to do....

Popular posts from this blog

My plane broke!

Man alive do i have a story for you! So i was supposed to go to isreal wednesday, i was flying direct and i was all excited that i was gonna have a normal flight. i had no problems with security i get on the plane i sit in my seat, get my book out. everyone is filing in. they do the whole security thing, turn off the lights we all settle in, i even turn off my beloved ipod. all of sudden they turn the lights back on, and they aer telling us that the plane is BROKEN! and that they haev to do sheet metal repair. so they give us an option to get off the plane and go through security again or we can stay on the plane and in an hour the well just move us to the next plain. now with my previous experience do yoiu thinki i believd them? uhuhuhuh! so i get off settle down with my book and get comfirtable . i call my parets to tell them what teh story was. so my father tell me to ask if i can change my flight to sun night cuz we had a seuda last night at my house and i was gonna miss it. so i c...
Read more

To Study or Not to Study?

I love Friday. I love the feeling that Shabbat is coming. Shabbos is a day like no other.. and that means that erev Shabbat is by association just as special. About a year and a half a go...maybe longer...I started buying flowers " lekavod shabbat kodesh!"  In seminary, Rabbi Geisler told us something that really stuck with me. He said that he does not buy his wife flowers on Friday. He and his wife go and buy flowers for Shabbat together. Rav Shimshon Pincus, in his sefer on Shabbat, also talks about flowers. He says that he went to the store to buy flowers for Shabbat. He went to the roses. Only the best for Shabbat. Only the best for the Queen. But he couldn't decide how many to get. A dozen. two dozen..there is no value for Shabbat. Maybe he should just buy them all? In the end he bought three roses; one for each of the avot, which in turn correspond to the three meals of Shabbat. The greatness of Shabbat is often ignored, trampled on. R'Pincus explains tha...
Read more