Wanna hear my take?

My point was that having sheifa legadlus doesn't mean that you don't have low self esteem in fact it could (possibly) even be the cause of it. 

Not to take away from having master plans for your future but I was trying to give eitzos for breaking out of a funk. We need to identify ourselves by our growth and take the lows as opportunities to grow. Someone like myself likes to identify himself by the lows in order to inspire himself to push harder. This is where I think many people go wrong. In the confusion of trying to become great people (which is a great thing by the way) some mistakenly try to inspire us by showing us our shortcomings and how far we are from our goals. For a healthy person it's debatable whether this is effective, but for most of us with weak self esteem, we begin identifying ourselves by our shortcomings. At first, it may seem inspiring and push us to push ourselves (and that's why our Rebeim do it, because they see instant results) but in the long run it causes us to break down. This can be compared to hitting a child out of anger, where you will see instant results but the actual chinuch value is a negative one.

Mesilas Yesharim in perek 1 describes where we are going. The reason why this is so important is because if we are not going anywhere we can never grow. This does not mean we will ever get there. Take a look at Da'as Tevunos perek 9 se'if 2 where he says clearly that we all have a specific task to complete in this world and no two people have the same task and that we cannot know what this task is. If this is so, how could he say in Mesilas Yesharim that everyone's goal is the same?

I think the answer is that since we don't know what our exact task is, what we do know is that if we use the characteristics that Hashem gave us and we follow the path that leads to a certain goal, we will accomplish our task. Because every person has different characteristics every persons journey will look different, and based on that we will IY"H fulfil our task in this world. So the concept of understanding chovaso b'olamo is not that we must achieve shleimus or we failed our task, rather that we need to use shleimus as our beacon, as our destination so that we can be certain that we are hitting all the right milestones along the way. Each and every person will be taking a different route to get there based on there specific nature and with Hashems help will reach what they were put on this world to accomplish.   

So, practically, I think that it is important to have a big sheifa, but primarily as a destination and not as a goal. The only way to get anywhere is by making a plan and that means making real tangible goals and a way to reach them.

I didn't mean you have to make more realistic goals, I meant they have to be more tangible. Trust me, I have a lot of faith in you becoming a gadol hador, that is not the issue here. My point is that in order to get through the trials of day to day life you have to make goals that are real and tangible in your life right now. It's not enough to have sheifos (aka dreams) about the future, you have to backtrack and figure out, if that's what I need to be then, what does my day have to look like now. If my day needs to be a certain way today, what kind of goals do I need to make for today and what do I need to do to accomplish them.

You spoke about struggling with shachris. Many people struggle with getting up, the mehalech is not beating yourself up, rather it's pushing through and realizing that even though something is hard it still can be done. It also helps to learn about the inyan that you are struggling with. Rav Shimshon Pincus has an excellent sefer called "Shearim B'tefillah" if you want to try this. 

In my experience, being a few years older than you and having been through many of the struggles you describe, I found that having expectations of myself usually leads to failure. The mehalech that works for me is to backtrack and try to figure out what I need to do today in order to become great, not because I expect myself to become great, rather because that's the destination. Don't have expectations of yourself, rather a destination, and a route. The route is a plan that includes goals and how to reach them.

Feel free to disagree, if you do, I would love to know why.

Nothing like a good debate.    

For what it's worth, I'll add my personal observations.  What I'm writing is in terms of learning and avodas Hashem goals, but many here will agree that some or all of what I write can be learned from our struggles with z"l and p**n..

I believe we are meant to push ourselves to attain higher and higher goals, otherwise it is unlikely we will get too far.  But beating oneself up for not getting further, or setting goals too high to realistically attain, are some of the ploys of the Yetzer Hora to dissuade us from continuing to push for greatness.

When a child is young, his parents (and teachers) reward him for good behavior and punish for bad behavior.  One without the other will not train a child properly, but it has to be done carefully.  It is said that for every negative there should be ten positives, so you should be rewarding or praising ten times for every punishment or criticism.  If the criticism level is too high, i.e. the kid falls into a rut of bad behavior, we are taught to lower the goals in order to reach the proper ratio.  Educators will sometimes make a contest with a child where he is sure to win the prize, because he needs to taste the candy in order to be spurred to reach higher.  Set him up for success, don't set him up for failure.

As a child grows, the reward changes from candy and toys, to words of praise, to self-feelings of success.  When we adults (or so we look) set goals for ourselves, we need to know how bad a loss will affect us.  At the beginning of our journey, we need to make small goals that we are all but guaranteed to accomplish.  Once we do this a number of times, we can set a higher goal where the chance of failing is higher.  If we fail once, we still know and remember the great feeling of success.  We will not get dejected by one loss.  Lose the battle but win the war.  If you lose too many battles and the soldiers are threatening to surrender, retreat to higher ground where you can defend your positions and have some success before getting back to the actual battlefield.

Another important point is not to get caught up in the past or the future too much.  Since most goals require long periods of time, the failures of the past and challenges of the future turn many away from accomplishing what they could.  There's much to say about this, just read every third forum on GYE and it will come up.

Wow this is so interesting! It's a topic i've debated with myself many times! I definitely have shot high because of low-self esteem at points, though i've shot high nothing to do with low-self esteem at other points. Unlike probably most people with low-self esteem, it actually worked for me a little, and I actually accomplished some things because of it. But it was painful and I almost gave up like 100 times, and it left me wondering if there was a better way of motivating myself (which there was).

I wanted to share a piece I wrote to myself years ago. I never thought anyone would ever read it, but hey you never know what will happen! (I did not write this regarding my struggles with taivah. I wrote this about accomplishment and sheifos in general. For taivah, I think any negativity, guilt, or low self-esteem will almost always drag the person down and make it harder for him to get anywhere.)


Anyway, here's what I wrote:

I once read a writeup of a speech by Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage and a lecturer about happiness. He spoke about his idea (backed by research) that happier people accomplish more and are more successful. After the speech, someone asked him that if that's true, why is it that so many people who made major discoveries and accomplishment were reported to have always been depressed? They had such a terrible self-image. Shouldn't that have stopped them from accomplishing? Shawn answered that if those people accomplished so much when they were depressed, imagine how much they could accomplish had they been happy!
I'm not sure that Shawn's answer is entirely accurate. I think that it could be that what motivated these people is their terrible view of themselves. These people felt like failures, and kept trying to accomplish to escape that label. Though that is definitely a recipe for being miserable and is not recommended — if a person doesn't have a basis for self-esteem then all the accomplishments in the world won't help because his viewpoint is twisted — I think it "motivated" them to accomplish.
Nonetheless, Shawn's point remains. No doubt, people that are happy generally are motivated to accomplish, while people who are depressed and view themselves as lousy are more likely to struggle. And this is even more true in today's day, where people are more likely to give up and live with their poor self-image than they are to accomplish to try to get out of it. (Or they will meet someone who will tell them they should love themselves as they are, with the message that all accomplishments are meaningless and it doesn't matter what they do, chas veshalom.) We are much better off if our children are happier and feel that they are succeeding, because that will motivate them to accomplish more. And it will help them identify as successful and as people who do what's right, which will drive them to accomplish more to act in accordance with that image.
Our children can feel a drive to accomplish even if they feel successful. We just have to stir them in the right direction by implanting within them the feeling that they are accomplishing rather than that they are accomplished. Then they will continue to follow the path of growth, especially if others around them also are following it.
By contrast, the old method of making our good and successful students feel nonetheless deficient is a dangerous strategy in today's day. Besides for the horrific pain it causes, as so many can attest to, it also slowly creates for them an identity as a deficient (and sometimes even as a wicked) person. These days, such people are much more likely to fall off the cliff in their yiddishkeit than they are to try to improve to overcome their self-image. (The upside is people who leave yeshiva and choose to forget about it entirely. They focus entirely on work, and view success in life as making money. The downside is people who go off the derech.) This is besides for the lives of misery they live through, and besides for that many people do try so hard but still can't live up to the tevi'os of the avos, and they eventually give up. And this is all without even considering that the motivating message works much better.
We can't sit back and say "well that's the way they did it in Europe." It's a different world today, with students who are much more delicate and not nearly as holy as the students then. We have no choice but to become an ally to our students, see and praise their successes, and get them to believe that they are on their way to becoming great! Then, when we show them the path to greatness, they will excitedly run forward and accomplish.


I'm curious to hear the oilam's thoughts.

Captain wrote on 05 Jan 2021 14:25:

Maskim 100%
And I believe such a Mahalach is similar to the Alter (Slabodka) and can be found expressed in the Chovas HaTalmidim

wilnevergiveup wrote on 05 Jan 2021 07:12:

Maskim 100%

wilnevergiveup wrote on 05 Jan 2021 07:12:

Not sure what u mean by this.
It seems the only difference according to you, between expectations and a destination is whether I’m upset at myself if I fail.
Is that wat ur saying?

YeshivaGuy wrote on 05 Jan 2021 16:22:

It's that you don't fail at your destination as it's not a goal. You can only fail by being on the wrong path but you have to know what that path is and that is what you need to focus on.

They say over in the name of the Ba'al Shem Tov that every person goes through 42 masaos in their lives. I think the pshat is that every person has their specific route that they need to take to be mesakein the tikkun they were put on this world for. What we need to do is reach each of these challenges, and overcome them. This is the goal and this is the focus of chovaso b'olamo. Not every person reaches the shleimus that the Ramchal is speaking about but that doesn't mean they didn't fulfil their tachlis which is to be mesakein whatever it is that Hashem has in mind for them. The reason then why we need to focus on the ultimate shleimus is in order to be able to map out our route properly to know that we are passing all the correct stops along the way. Following the path that leads to shleimus ensures that we are on this path each person with his own special route.

We don't have to be fearful of not reaching shleimus per se, it's missing the stops along the way that we need to be worry about. We don't know how we are supposed to be traveling so we need to take whatever situation Hashem puts us in and make the most of it. 

Expectations mean that we feel that we should be something. The problem is, it's hard to be something if you aren't put in the right situation to succeed. therefore it's  try to maximize every situation you find yourself in instead of wanting to become something else. For example, don't expect yourself to come to shachris because tomorrow you might be sick or you may need the restroom etc. but you can put yourself in the best position for you to achieve this. You can also be mechazeik the inyan that you are working on but you don't need to have expectations. Expectations are not goals nor are they a plan and they are not sheifos either, so I don't really see a toeles of having expectations at all except for being let down at the end.

The concept of having a destination was to separate real tangible goals from dreams. Sorry for putting the two together, I see how it was a little confusing.

wilnevergiveup wrote on 05 Jan 2021 19:43:

Ah I see, very good. Shkoyach Gadol, I think I understand now.
I see we were working with different definitions of “expectations,” either way, gevaldik. 
Thanks for taking the time to help!

Subconsciously I’m upset about certain things I didn’t do today...
Focusing on moving forward.
Didnt chazer as much today as I need to (before going veiter in 2nd Seder) and wasted time etc...

Taking melatonin now to fall asleep right away to start anew in the morning, bezras Hashem!

As breakfast comes to a close and I prepare to go to first Seder, I pose:

As of now, I use this phone for GYE and to listen/watch shiurim on the TorahAnytime app.

On one hand, seems great! A great kosher outlet etc..
But there are drawbacks:
1.I can spend too much time, even on a shiur that i (ironically) come late to seder.
2. Once in awhile (though rare) I can come to get my friend to put in the code.
3. I lack the “tzura” of a Ben Yeshiva which I strive to attain.
4.Going on this device when I’m in my room, accustoms me to constant “entertainment,” even though it’s in the form of Torah.
Like, I’ll be sitting in my room and get a form of anxiety unless I’m preoccupied with listening to a shiur or something.
And I’m not happy with that.

Again, what’s funny is that lmaaseh I’m bh not usually nichshal on this phone, cuz I have zero browser and everything’s blocked bh.
But still, I know what I need to do, I’m not dumb.
The only way to truly shteig is to be detached from anything, even if it’s positive, outside of Yeshiva.
At least that’s what I think...

Have a great Day!

YeshivaGuy wrote on 06 Jan 2021 14:06:

Your thoughts are truly inspiring.  You are not just looking to be a 'kosher jew' but a true Ben Torah.  In this generation (I'm an 'old man' in his 40s) it seems to be getting harder and harder to find boys who even understand the problems of a 'kosher smartphone' in their aliya and avodah.

Now's the perfect time to 'upgrade' to a dumb-phone!

Tonight B’ezras Hashem is my Birthday.
22Years since my Neshama was sent to this world to carry out my Tachlis...

One thing I’ll say, is that I’m honored to be reaching this moment together with all of you.

Its a zechus to turn to my creator this year and say, that despite many of my shortcomings and setbacks, I have indeed grown during the last 22 years, and certainly in the last year. 

May we be zoche to carry out our mission for which we were created.

YeshivaGuy

Mazel Tov! Ad Meah V'Esrim Gezunterheit:)

Mazal tov!
Perhaps we should celebrate with a Lchaim? Maybe some Thursday night Chulent? Or are you more into a traditional Birthday cake?

Its hard to fully articulate my Hakaros HaTov to the Ribono Shel Olam.
Before I was born, the doctors wanted to terminate the pregnancy (cuz was probs), and almost did.. bh HaShem decided that I should come down to this world.
And in the place, time, and matzav that I’m in.

Im sitting in my room, I got some dougies as Seudas Hodaa.
I was gonna be singing shiros etc to HaShem, but I’m just speechless...