chaimoigen wrote on 16 Jul 2025 16:08:

What if there isn't anything that gives me chiyus, pleasure, meaning, and value? Or if there are some things but they are expensive, time consuming, culturally frowned upon, out of my control, or otherwise unavailable?

You made me think about the fact that I'm constantly numbing myself, whether with lust, stam web browsing, podcasts and radio, etc., and I can't think of any way to replace that.

birshusi wrote on 25 Jul 2025 15:55:

Why not start here. Think how much time is wasted online and is ruining your life vs the time consuming, culturally frowned upon...break free my friend.

birshusi wrote on 25 Jul 2025 15:55:

Strongly relate to this. Listen to some of Dov's recordings about the 12 steps idea of surrender. Life's too meaningful to be constantly trying to run away. It's possible to learn to accept it instead.

birshusi wrote on 25 Jul 2025 15:55:

Oysh, this is painful to see… here’s a warm hand…
Nothing that gives you spiritual pleasure and satisfaction? I’m not speaking about frumkeit . Does giving or making a difference to others help? Are there experiences in which you feel a sense of being alive? 

Friend Shem is talking about acceptance and surrender, which is powerful medicine. But, to my thinking, that’s about when there is painfulness and rage and pushback against that which is all wrong. 

I’m talking about finding what is right. Are there no moments when there is a feeling of rightness and good in the center of your being ?

kavey wrote on 25 Jul 2025 16:52:

Fair, but the other conditions remain as impediments.

chaimoigen wrote on 27 Jul 2025 04:41:

I need to think about your questions to give a fully accurate answer, but off the top of my head:
- Making a difference to others does make me feel good - when it works. I spend my whole day helping, and that does give me tremendous gratification, chiyus, and sense of wholeness and fulfillment, but often times it doesn't, and actually does the opposite.
- You're not gonna like this, but the I feel most alive at the beach, in warm weather, at sunrise. I've done that twice in my entire life. (My post that started this discussion should make more sense now...) Exercising feels good, but when? At 5am when I'm getting some much-needed sleep? And where? In the dense concrete jungle in which I live? IT"L yes, that works when it's warm out, but what about in the winter? I could go on...
- That feeling of rightness and good at the center of my being is what I'm always either in pursuit of, or in flight from due to its absence. I am making some progress in certain ways towards understanding why I feel so unsatisfied, but it remains a constant struggle.

chaimoigen wrote on 27 Jul 2025 04:41:

Acceptance and surrender is far beyond a way of dealing with things that are wrong. It's relevant anytime I want something other than the way it is. Your life, the way it is right now, today, standing here, is the way it is because that is the way HaShem wants it to be. If nothing in that life gives you chiyus, and you find yourself ceaselessly numbing yourself in response to life, 12 steps teaches that you need to work on being mevatel your ratzon to his ratzon. Accept that this is what Hashem wants, and ask yourself what do I need to do. 

Obviously not an easy ask, and reaching that point is a lifetime of avodah.  

In no way does that exclude taking an honest look at your life and figuring out what about your life makes you feel the need to escape, looking for ways/activities to make yourself happy, or exploring other paths of reaching that acceptance other than the kind of brute force method of 12 steps. But the idea is that if your life makes you unhappy it's a chisaron in you, not in life.

Sorry if this is a bit philosophical. It's a feeling I strongly relate to. Working on lust has involved a surprising amount of work on this feeling and there's miles yet to go. Happy to shmooze about it if you'd like. 

lol. I read your last "or" as going on all the impediments. I definitely hear then.

Per your other post we invested in a treadmill during covid and I started using regularly this past winter. Exercising while listening to the Rabbi Orlofsky show...almost as sublime as the beach