toughwarrior wrote on 26 Feb 2025 01:09:

You are right, I should not have used such a broad label. Just meant to say that there is an alternative view. Receiving is not the same as taking. 

We disagree, because I think this is exactly the point. It's not about the scar, it's about avoiding comparisons and being able to accept your life that Hashem gave you. 

If you can't accept, then how much will ever be enough? 

Again i didn't say you shouldn't accept your situation and make the best of it, but what does that have to do with the point at hand?
If a person was born without an arm C"V, he should definitely accept his pekel and make the best out of his life, but that doesn't mean that the חסרון he has in and of itself is a sense of joy and pride. What can be a source of pride and satisfaction is going on with your life and accomplishing things that are in your realm of possibilities and doing things that Hashem gave you the kochos for, but that doesn't make every chisaron you have a mylah.
If you read my first comment on this thread you'll see i wasn't coming to agree with the original question, i was just coming to disagree with the notion that the world is looking at things the wrong way on who's חשוב and who's not, to which i strongly disagree with. But yes your point is obviously true that everyone should accept their fate and make the best of it and not compare themselves to others, it just has nothing to do with the point i was trying to make.
Kol Tuv

toughwarrior wrote on 26 Feb 2025 03:55:

Not sure what got lost in translation, but we seem to agree on what we're saying. 

The point in my view was that the OP feels like his constraints are limiting his life, and I'd like to suggest that there is life to be found in (almost) any situation.

Kol Tov Brother 

What got lost in translation was that I was responding to someone's comment, you then responded to my comment with a totally off topic point which i thought you were connecting to my point, but turns out you were just trying to make a new point and kind of directing it at me even though it was just another comment to the thread itself.
Kol Tuv 

"The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children."-Gilbert Keith Chesterton

yitzchokm wrote on 20 Feb 2025 20:07:

Correct. Although I reached this conclusion independently, I was happy to find this approach in the Intro to Rav Shimon Shkop's Shaarei Yosher (excerpt attached)

As an aside, I am not asserting that everyone has to agree to my definition. There are other seforim who take a more mystical approach to the purpose of life. If someone else finds those approaches inspiring, then Kol Hakavod to them. R' Shimon's olam hazeh-centric approach (humanistic if I dare say) particularly resonated with me.


I think helping others would actually be very meaningful. Aside from the forums though, I can't do anything in person. My wife doesn't know about my struggle and recovery efforts. All my recovery work is on the down low. Helping others would need to be the same

BenHashemBH wrote on 20 Feb 2025 20:12:

This is a great question! I don't have a precise amount, but I certainly have a feel for what is enough. Its kind of like the height at which a mound of earth is no longer a hill and becomes a mountain. We know a mountain when we see it, and we can also recognize when its still just a hill. There may be gray areas where we are not sure how to classify, but getting back to the topic at hand, I can confidently state that I am not yet a mountain/big person. Still in the realm of a hill. 

That being said, you forced me to look deeper to further refine the problem description.

I strongly suspect that if all my (ostensibly God given) abilities were to be utilized in life, I would feel content, even if I'm no Yaakov Shwekey, Charlie Harary, Shlomo Yehuda Rechnitz etc. The issue is that although I am giving life my all in the current circumstances, it is clear to me that with some minor Divine Intervention, I would be in a much different place in life, utilizing my full potential. To use an analogy, I’m maxed out on the weights in the gym and am looking, without success, for heavier ones.

In particular, my lack of career success is the primary source of frustration. I have been blessed with a yiddishe kup and exceptional work ethic, graduated with a bachelor’s and master’s degree in STEM fields with highest honors , but that early success has not translated into professional accomplishment.  I make a solid middle-class salary (a.k.a living a frum lifestyle by the skin of my teeth), working a job that is of mediocre social utility. I'm not operating at full capacity, not even close. I'm typing this during work hours actually, because there is nothing else to do. I got my work done already, so It's either GYE, Netflix or Solitaire. (Yes, of course I have done and continue to due my hishtadlus to improve my lot. Trying to climb the corporate ladder has been like swimming through molasses. Applying to new positions at the moment).

This hurts in my kishkes. It hurts because of the intrinsic and extrinsic meaning that I attach to economic productivity. Intrinsically, it is a measure (admittedly not the only) of the service (a.k.a. good) that you provide to others, ala Rabbi Daniel Lapin’s excellent book “Thou Shall Prosper.” Extrinsically, it is the means used to benefit society via our tax and charity dollars. I’m also a minimalist and am good at giving away money, but can only give a relatively small amount to tzedakah since I don’t have a lot of money.

So that is the issue. I am not asking a “Tzadik v’ra lo” question. First, because I’m no Tzadik, but more importantly, because my frustration is directed towards the heart of my existence itself. How should I relate to God when it doesn’t appear that he is involved in my life in such a way that is leading to the fulfillment of my potential? If God created me to be a mediocrity, that's fine, but then don't give me a Type A personality so I need to live in constant frustration. That's just sadistic.

I should have added that I have already spoken to 4 therapists and I-lost-track-of-how-many rabbis. So far no luck :-(, but I'll keep on looking


I am curious how else to understand the mesilas yesharims approach in his intro. Seems like I summed it up, albeit with a bit too much cynicism and frustration. 

Long post. Thanks for listening to me ramble.

simchastorah wrote on 20 Feb 2025 20:11:

Correct, Excellent point. So I have meaning, just not enough.
Your reply, along with BenHashemBH in post #431770 forced me to refine the issue in post #432195. In essence, I think the issue is that I feel small vis-a-vis what I feel I can be, rather than just comparison to Ploni Big Guy

youknowwho wrote on 21 Feb 2025 14:23:

This post is gold.

It may ultimately boil down to the need for me to pick up my big boy pants (no pun intended) and just bite the bullet. Life may be blah. God may not exist (or is the "blind watchmaker") for all I know. But in the end of the day, the price for that temporary relief will come back to bite me in the rear end and only makes things worse. It's like the saying goes "We used to drink to drown our troubles. Then we realized our troubles can float, but we couldn't." 

iyh2023 wrote on 21 Feb 2025 15:49:

Ah R' Naftali Horowitz, the shpitz example of a big person. Shtei Shulchanos, and Ish Haeshkolos. I'm jealous of people like him.

You are correct though. No way in Hell I'm gonna settle in life. Always striving for more

chosemyshem wrote on 21 Feb 2025 16:51:

Very good hagdarah of the potential solutions.

Thanks for bringing this resource to my attention. I downloaded dov's recordings, listened to the first one and will follow up with you when I'm done with all 12.

Thank you to everyone who took the time in crafting the thoughtful responses to my post. I appreciate those who proposed solutions, the validation from those who had none, as well as the pushback by those who disagreed with some of my premises. 

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who reached out to help. That alone is a balm on the soul..

Have a good shabbos everyone. Time2Win

time2win wrote on 27 Feb 2025 22:02:

Let's say someone were able to convince you that your potential to be 'big' is much less than you think (I hope it's clear that this is a thought exercise and nothing more than that.) According to your premise, you should feel instantly better, because you would find out that you're not small relative to what you could be. 

If you imagine this happening, do you imagine yourself feeling relieved? Or in more pain?
If the answer is more pain the sense of smallness must be coming from somewhere else. 

fwiw per R' Avigdor Miller in Chovos Halevavos recordings (haven't learned inside) the desire to give is essentially equivalent to giving. There's an interesting anecdote he shares about R' Yisroel Salanter talking to a poor old man about the importance of giving to yeshivos. When his talmidim asked why he wasting his breath, R' Salanter gave that explanation.

As an aside, the book Your Designed Body (by Christian authors so with added benefit of bathroom reading) really helped me crush any blind watchmakers who wanted to take up lodging in my brain.

Hey brother.
It's scary to see someone echoing eerily similar sentiments to those my old self used to ruminate on ("Who am I? Why am I here? What benefit do I bring to the world? Why did Hashem create a hopeless, handicapped, insignificant loser like myself?"). Makes me all the more grateful for who I am today. And if I got out of hell, anyone can.
I was a 17-year-old with overpowering OCD, anxiety and almost nonexistent self-confidence when I discovered pornography. To make a long story short (full story in signature), I was addicted for 5 years. During that time, I went through more emotional pain than I ever thought possible, beat myself up repeatedly (loser, bum, failure, disgrace, pathetic fraud, lowlife, liar--you name it, I thought it), questioned Hashem repeatedly for why He created such a miserable existence such as myself, and was actually angry at Hashem for "putting me" in the situations that I was in (given that I was such a hopeless lost cause, why couldn't Hashem just at least make it easy for me?, etc.).
With enormous pain, countless tears, shame and humiliation, mental self-torture and self-hatred, and many, many mistakes, I eventually learned the truth.
We don't always know why Hashem gives us the challenges and occurrences that we encounter. That comes down to Emunah and Bitachon.
But whatever the situation is, our purpose in life is to react to those situations by emulating Hashem. We can't choose what happens to us in life, but we can choose how we react to it. We know the truth-that Hashem is the Almighty, one, true G-d, that he knows what he's doing (because in the words of Abie Rotenberg: "It's His world, after all"), that He has a master plan that involves each and every single person (even if we have no clue how!), and that he put us in our specific roles for a reason (which we are not privy to know, because otherwise there'd be no such thing as "Emunah"-everything would be undeniably obvious). Our job is to keep emulating Him and walking in His ways, 24/7, regardless. Because ultimately, what defines success is not wealth, or fame, or social acceptance/recognition; nor is it even the amount of times we make Siyumim or finish Shas. 
It's whether we fulfilled our purpose in life by responding to the situations we were put in with Emunah and Bitachon, or not. It really is that simple. The Ramchal writes in Derech Eitz Chaim that if a person goes through life without ever thinking: "What am I? What did HaKadosh Baruch Hu put me here to accomplish? What do I want the end result of my life to look like?", it is impossible for him to be successful, regardless of whatever happens to him externally, because he has no chance at recognizing his individual purpose. (And anyone who says "There is nothing I'm here to accomplish. My existence is meaningless" is a Koifer. Just say it like it is. They're claiming that they know better than Hashem, who sees everything and created them to begin with, and that His creating them was meaningless. That's called כפירה.) And it's not a question any person can know the answer to immediately. But it's up to us to provide the answer, and we do that by reacting to life the way an Eved Hashem does. With אמונה.
Today, Chasdei Hashem, I am happily married to the most incredible woman in the world, living and learning in Eretz Yisrael, and living a beautiful life. But the best part of it is that B"H, I now look back and see that every situation, every ounce of pain and torture that I was in was perfectly designed for me by HKB"H to make me into the person that I am today. And while I would never want to relive it, I'm so grateful to Him for every bit of it.
BE"H, you should merit to have that same feeling soon. Keep grinding. It'll come.
Love you brother. All the best,
FWF