I showed
you in a recent post that one of the most basic
Jewish beliefs is that we can achieve great things by
choosing how to act and how to respond to things that happen to us.
We
saw how Abraham lived like this and that's why the Torah records that
he lived his entire life, rather than just
letting it pass him by.
Let's think about the freedom to choose and
specifically why it's so vital to living a fulfilling life. Why is this
so basic to Jewish beliefs that Moses uses it in his final words to the
Jewish people before they enter Israel?
The answer is along these lines: Simply
put, we can't choose what
happens to us and as much as we plan, things don't often work out the
way we expect.
But if we dig into ourselves, we can always find
that
point at which we are deciding how to process the stuff going on around
us. Sometimes, there's nothing we can actually do, but we can still
choose our mental response - the way we frame events that happen to us.
When something goes wrong, we could tell ourselves
that life stinks and
if only we could control this, that and the other, then life would be
great.
We could even try to control everything,
even
legislate against annoying noises from other people! But I think we'll
end up terribly frustrated. The simple fact is that apart from our own
actions, nothing else is really under our control.
But if we give up on
the illusion that we can stop the annoying
sounds or whatever other frustrations,
we can then put some thought and energy into figuring out what next.
We
can start thinking about how to respond, how to accept the situation
and make the best of it. We can reach that interface between the
external stuff and our own thoughts and actions.
When we stop trying to
silence everyone else, we can listen more carefully to our own thoughts
and then we'll realise that we have not only the volume
control but that we can actually tune into a completely different
station.
So if we make an effort to hear our own thoughts
and take control over them, there's no doubt that we will sense that we
are actually living life. The irony of giving up control over all those
other things is that we take far more control of our lives.
I'm going to leave you with this happy ending but
it's not really the end of the story. Learning to choose our responses
and accepting the bad with the good is great but by itself it's not
going to make an Abraham
out of you. How do we square this kind of tranquil introspection with
the need to actually get up and fight against evil? Subscribe to
stay tuned.
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