Life Lessons

Some interesting lessons I've learned and/or been reminded of lately are:

1) Sometimes an extreme example of something in life, teaches us to grow in the same but lesser way and is a gift.

Looking at someting outside of ourselves, where another person overreacts to something (from our perspective) and it seems clear that their reaction is exaggerated from what should be from the situation) gives us the opportunity to look at our own lives and see if we are in fact making similar mistakes. Finding these mistakes can be such a gift, because having honest clarity and perspective on our lives gives us the chance to make real changes, that make our lives better.

Similar maybe to when Dovid Hamelech was asked to judge a situation by Hashem, and though the particulars of it were different, he was in fact passing the judgement that would stick to him. He was being judged based on his own value system, (possibly similar to the Shevatim when Yosef gave them tochacha - Ha'od Avi Chai? You said how much you cared about my father, and didn't want him to die from losing a loved son - what about what happened with me? - Shevatim aspect is based on a Devar Torah given by a friend of mine on Shabbos named Talya - am not sure what her source is though)

Another nice life lesson:

2) People give us gifts, not always the ones we want, they don't always show they care in the way we might wish they did, but if make the decision to take notice of the ways that they do in fact show up for us in the relationship, and remember the wonderful things they've done for us, when they don't come through in some other way, we may find there is more love coming at us than we quite realized :).

3) Life without focusing on growing spiritually is dry and stagnant. Are you stagnating and bored? There might be a reason why. Other things do not provide long lasting fulfillment...Growing does.

4) Just a reminder for a plug to read Chovos Halevovos...maybe I should start posting from it on here. It would give me a reminder to read it, and a sense of meaning and purpose to share it with others...Just an idea....Guess we'll see what happens with it.

5) Teshuva is a process. We can't expect it to happen in a day. (from a friend - Thanks, Friend :)) But be lighted (lit?) on fire searching for it. Not travelling forward is travelling backward, unless your process is different...