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muman613:
From the excellent Aish.com website @ http://www.aish.com/h/hh/gar/sa/Spiritual_Accounting_System.html

Spiritual Accounting System
by Rabbi Noah Weinberg
To be successful in business, you need a good accountant. The same principle for success applies in the game of life.

If you ask someone: Are you eating to live, or living to eat? Of course they'll tell you they're eating to live.

Now ask them: What are you living for? They won't always have a good answer, but at least you made them think about what they're doing in life. Unfortunately the majority of humanity is very busy doing and accomplishing, but they don't know for what.

Everyone has instances in life where something wakes them up and they're confronted by the question: "What has my life been all about up till now?" Momentarily they may be scared. But all too often, rather than trying to answer the question, the person escapes by turning on the TV or grabbing a newspaper.

A man I know in Jerusalem was accidentally shot, and as a result became a paraplegic. While lying in the hospital, he was faced with this question: "What is life all about? What am I living for?" Today he will tell you that God did him a great favor by paralyzing him; otherwise he may have gone through his entire life without ever asking this fundamental and crucial question.

Asking the Question

If the doctor told us we only had six months to live, we'd ask ourselves "What's life all about?" Think about it. Some day we'll only have six months to live, but then it may be too late to consider the question. So we have to start asking ourselves now.

We are very fortunate because through the Torah, God has told us what we're here for. Ultimately what we want in life is to love God. What we have to do is get in touch with this desire of our souls and then plan how to attain that love. We say this in the Shema twice daily (and it's written in the mezuzah): "To know that God is One, and to love Him with everything we have."

Use your mind to clarify if this is what you really want. If it is, then ask, "What am I doing to attain it?"

This is the process a Jew goes through on Rosh Hashana: "What am I living for?" and "What am I doing to attain it?" If we do this we're guaranteed greatness.

The biggest individual fence against wasting your life is Cheshbon Hanefesh ― Spiritual Accounting. You need a regular system to evaluate how well you performed and take stock of where you stand.

Every night before going to bed, look back at that day’s events, and evaluate where you profited or lost. Then make a plan so the next day will be more productive.

Ask yourself:

* What have I accomplished today?
* Did I accomplish what I intended?
* How am I going to improve for tomorrow?
* What are my strengths and weaknesses?
* What's my profit? What's my loss?
* How far have I come in my long-term goals?
* What's holding me back from growing?

Read over your list of mistakes and remind yourself, “This is the enemy.” It might be laziness, or envy, or bad temper. Track down your own Achilles heel, and concentrate on that. If you review your list daily, and get angry at your own stupidities, then that anger will give you the power to make changes.

Annual Review

On Rosh Hashana, we make a cheshbon covering the previous year. Figure out what you did right and what you did wrong ― and then make a plan to correct those mistakes.

On the other hand, our day-to-day actions need to be reviewed constantly. All the little steps are critically important. We can't just dream and fantasize about our goals and forget to do the steps to accomplish them, or we'll never get there. Great people started at the bottom too, and worked their way up. Without cheshbon we're lost. We have to keep track of our time management and constantly juggle our priorities. If we do this consistently ― e.g. every night ― then we'll be great!

We have to take responsibility for our lives because no one else will do it for us. We are all created in God's image and have the potential for greatness. The most important thing is to ask ourselves and clarify "What am I living for?"

In his classic book of Jewish ethics, "The Path of the Just," Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato says: "The foundation of good action and the root of true service of God is for a person to know his goal in this world." This is our motto in Judaism. If a person has clarity on where he's going in life, he'll get there. Otherwise he'll just remain in a state of confusion all his life. This is the common denominator of "free will" available to every human being. Figure out what you're living for and you're guaranteed to be great.

The shofar blasts like an alarm clock. We can either wake up and ask the right questions, or sleep our lives away. The Almighty wants us to wake up and live.

muman613:
Shalom LKZ,

I read your message this morning and wanted to tell you that I am thinking about your situation. I will reply with more information after I get home from work this evening.

Israel Chai:

--- Quote from: muman613 on September 17, 2014, 02:46:54 PM ---Shalom LKZ,

I read your message this morning and wanted to tell you that I am thinking about your situation. I will reply with more information after I get home from work this evening.


--- End quote ---

Never mind. I did think about my life situation, and I know what I need to do. I organized my school and my life around work that I kept doing for next to no pay because I can help people and improve the world. It's obvious now that I'm nothing but a pathetic dreamer. I'm quitting my job and school and doing a program where they pay you to become a welder, and then I'm moving to deep in the north to work at a diamond mine, and that way I can make a little money, and maybe when I'm 40 I can open a health food store, or just retire. I'm sick of sacrificing myself for others who don't want anything to do with me. The last 2 options were 2 Jewish guys that could have made millions with the slightest effort, one has taken 6 months to get me 2 minutes of details from engineers in a gold mine, and the other gave me emails of people for me to cold call, and didn't bother talking to any of them. No one's going to help me, and none of my dreams will ever be more, and if I don't live by that, I'm going to be on the streets in a year.

It's like a cruel joke now, but I always put an extra effort into my interest in politics because I thought I would be a Canadian politician. Since I'm obviously not going to be in the knesset, and even saying Canadian politician is pathetic if it's in a sentence in my name, I need to give up working towards that and all my other impossible dreams. You know I've been fighting for more than 2 years to get a bris? Over 100 calls, 10 doctor's visits and a few tests, pants down over 5 times, and it still seems as unlikely as the first day, and G-d forbid anyone should ever return one of the messages I left. Everyone tells me how much they like talking with me me and will call me after the rare shabbat dinners I have out, and then never contact me or invite me again, and usually don't respond to messages I send after. I can't even fit into goyish communities, and I'm deluding myself that I'll be anything as a Jew, and it's a fantasy that I'll ever get integrated enough to find a Jewish wife. I'm going to have a job and live a crappy life and die like everyone else, and at least it'll be less torture than having to pray a thousand times a day and get nothing, other than hope, which has always only ever made the inevitable crappy situation hurt more when it gets crushed.

muman613:
LKZ,

I cannot explain why people act like this and it is disappointing to me that you are unable to get the respect that every Jew should be given. I feel that you have a Jewish neshama just from our chatting and on the forum. I do care about your condition and although I am very busy with my own problems I try so hard to be able to support others, yourself included, because we only have each other. We need a support system in order to feel good about ourselves and our world. Without friends and support we are left alone in a world which seems to work against us.

I don't know what goals and aspirations of yours are attainable and which are just dreams. We must asses our abilities and realistically set the goals of our life. I may find it hard to relate because I was blessed with knowing early in my life what I 'wanted to be' (which is a software engineer).

Please do not give up on Hashem, on the Jewish ideal of making the world a better place, of making ourselves the best we can be. I believe you have run into a phenomenon known as 'Baal Teshuva burn-out' which happens when someone returns to Judaism and tries to take on everything at once, and becomes overwhelmed with the mitzvot and feels unable to keep up with all the minutiae. I have felt this, and my unprofessional opinion is that your personal happiness is of paramount concern. If keeping commandments does not make you happy you must figure out how you can be happy with them, or back off some and keep others.

I do not recommend turning your back on Torah and Mitzvot. I hope they stay with you whatever you decide to do with your life. I know that there is a spark deep inside me that no matter how dismal the world may be, how badly I feel the world is treating me, how my family is decimated by assimilation and question the future of the Jewish people, no matter what I have a spark inside me that knows it will be OK when it is all over.

I know that even when I feel down, a sunny day or a funny word can turn my mood around, and a warm fuzzy feeling in my soul explodes. I believe my mother instilled in me this ability to feel content even in the most difficult of conditions. I hope that you can find the spark of happiness in your soul which you can draw upon when you feel depressed from lifes bad experiences.

I hope you find a career which can provide you with everything you need. I am unable to help you in that area. I am a computer expert and that is all, I don't deviate from this path as it has been what has brought in the parnassa for me since I was 17 years old...

Let us find time to chat again, hopefully with more time...

muman613:
LKZ,

I spoke with my Rabbi this evening and would like to expound on some things he told me... I will save it to post tomorrow evening.

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