Counting the Omer: Wednesday night, 27 April 2016/20 Nissan 5776

Joel Edgarton and Carey Mulligan in The Great Gatsby, 2013

Today is Day Five of Week One of the Omer.  That is Day Five of the Omer.  The theme of the Week is Slavery.

I want to thank you, my readers, for the feedback you’ve been giving me on this series of thoughts.  Even when you correct me!  Someone wrote last night to point out that Barry Bonds must have played for the San Francisco Giants, not the 49ers as I wrote, since the latter is the city’s Football team!  And of course, she’s correct!  So I know that I goofed.  But I also know that another person took the time to read my offering.  Maybe I should announce a contest to find the Rabbi’s mistake for the day…

So yesterday I wrote about the slavery of low self-expectations and asserted that it is us and our lack of self-confidence, more than anything else, that limits us.  And I used as an example, the competition between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa, in the 1998 Baseball season, to set a new Homerun record.

What I didn’t mention yesterday – because after all I need to leave enough to write about for the rest of the week! – is that we also find ourselves succumbing to the slavery of living up to others’ expectations.  This, rather than forming our own self-expectations based on our own values.  I will write later in the Omer weeks about values and how we might make sure that ours are sound.  For now, suffice it to say that it is important to have sound values that truly reflect our philosophical underpinnings.  And that the lofty self-expectations that we will now all set after reading Rabbi Don’s eloquent appeal yesterday, will reflect our own values and not someone else’s.

I say this, because one cannot assume that the popular values that others go for, are truly worthy values.

I’ve already mentioned the pitfall of lusting after stuff.  Material goods.  Shiny objects that we think will bring us happiness.  So you already know that I completely reject that notion:  stuff will bring you no happiness whatsoever.  But that doesn’t mean that I’m anti-stuff.  Believe me, I like stuff as much as the next guy.  That I possess very little stuff, doesn’t indicate that I don’t like having stuff.  Rather, it reflects that, over the years, I’ve tended to choose other things over stuff.  Because thank G-d, I learned at a relatively young age that stuff as much as you might enjoy it, does not lead to happiness.

So, when I assert that it is our own lack of self-confidence that is the biggest contributor to our not finding success,  I don’t mean that you should look at everybody who has not achieved wealth, everybody who does not have a higher degree, or a lucrative and prestigious occupation, everybody who is not at the top of his field, and think:  There’s one who lacks self-confidence,  And, if you’re the one about whom any of the above can be said, I certainly do not mean that you should crawl under a rock lest everybody around you see you for the failure that you ‘are.’

Rather, each one of us should sit down and decide what measure of success our own values would demand.  And then reach for that!  If you were a professional Baseball player, chances are that setting a Homerun record would be a no-brainer for a goal.  But for most of the rest of us, our personal goals might not be so obvious.  And we should not enslave ourselves to work for what someone else’s goal might be.

I don’t know what would make you happy.  But I can easily predict that, if you busy yourself working to achieve someone else’s goals, or the goals that you think you aught to pursue, that is not the road to happiness.  And any success that you achieve in pursuing goals not your own, that you don’t buy into deep in the kishkes, will be a fleeting success.  As success that brings little satisfaction.  As proof, I know many individuals – and I’m sure you do, too – who have achieved success by conventional measure.  Perhaps fabulous success!  And yet, are thoroughly miserable people.  No need to name names; everybody knows somebody who fits the description.

Yes, it is important not to succumb to the slavery of self-imposed limitations.  But it is also important not to succumb to the slavery of working our tails off for goals that are not out own.