Pool of Inspiration

We live in a deep, heavenly pool. We cannot see it -- still, we use it; enjoy it; draw life-giving, empowering, happy energy from it.

Which waters fill this pool? -- Wisdom; strength; wealth and health; success and joy; the Creator Himself.

Which buckets draw waters from this well? -- Our minds.

Which barrels do we fill with these waters? Ourselves -- the more we absorb these waters, the more we are wise and strong, happy and successful.

In general, help comes to us through other people. However, these people are not the real source of our help. They are only a pipeline. Therefore, we must look to the source, that we do not forfeit its gift -- that we do not lose its energy. We must know this pool, trust in its springs, and immerse ourselves deep, deep in these waters.

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Adding Bricks

What goal may fill all our time -- occupy all our thoughts? It's the goal of becoming a great person -- a shining personality.

Every life happening requires a response -- in one way or another. A knock on the door asks us to answer the door. By answering the door, we choose to help the person knocking. By ignoring the knock, we push the intruder away. Even in quiet moments, we make choices -- do we read a magazine, do we go to sleep, do we pray.

Within the choice we make awaits the opportunity to be great. The choice we make is critical -- it decides the person we become.

In every situation, we have a choice -- one greater, one lesser. One choice adds a brick to the skyscraper we aim to become. The other bypasses the opportunity, leaving it to die.

A burning goal, a fiery desire -- one that fills all our time, that occupies all our thoughts -- helps us make a better choice.

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Obsessed

If we could be fully obsessed with one great goal, then the thought

-- That our living conditions are not ideal, wouldn't bother us.

-- That others have more than we do, wouldn't upset us.

-- That our future was uncertain, wouldn't worry us.

If we could be fully obsessed with one great goal, our complaints and regrets would simply disappear. We would shrug off the petty inconveniences and discomforts that surround us.

We need to ask then, is there a goal to which we can give ourselves -- a goal that will fill our minds?

The Torah gives us a number of targets to aim for -- a variety of goals for a variety of people, each one at a different level. All are worthwhile -- something to which we can dedicate ourselves. All can fill our mind -- keep it busy, keep it buzzing. All can grow, expand, with unlimited horizons, endless prizes.

However, none of these goals will work until we make them our goals. None will help us before we give ourselves over to them. For our survival, for our happiness, for our success, we must take on great, glorious goals.

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Heavenly Self

Hold you body still. Close your eyes. In your mind, float up -- beyond the ceiling, beyond the clouds, beyond the universe. Feel yourself leaving the heaviness of your body, of your world. Move from darkness into light. Feel your surroundings becoming brighter, clearer. Fly upwards into a greater joy, a wider love.

Now, as you advance, sense yourself approaching a space of power and energy. Experience the majesty, awe, wonder of this space. Feel the authority, beauty, glory of this center.

You penetrate partitions, and more partitions, and slowly come to a stop before a heavenly being. You look to the beauty of this face, the warmth of these eyes, and you recognize them. Whose appearance is this?

It's the one you see each time you look in a mirror. For, in the image of the Divine Creator each one of us is created (Breishis 1.27).

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Raise Yourself

Be a king or a queen. Be noble. Be gracious. Be kind and friendly. Have a generous word to say to someone -- especially someone who would like to hear a generous word. Have money to give someone -- especially someone who would like to receive money. Raise yourself beyond feelings of envy or resentment.

We often ask, "Why is the success I so want, not mine? Why am I not attracting the people I want to myself? Why do I not draw the money and promotion I want into my life?"

The reason we don't draw all we want to ourselves, is because we aren't yet the people we would like to be -- we aren't yet the people we know we can be. First, we need to be what we can be. Then, we'll enjoy the privileges and pleasures we want.

Therefore, be a king or a queen. Be noble. Be gracious. Be kind and friendly. Have a generous word to say to someone who would like to hear a generous word. Have money to give someone who would like to receive some money. Raise yourself beyond feelings of envy or resentment.

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Think

We want change in our life. We want improvements. We know it can be different, it can be better. What can we do about this?

Real change starts within us -- and our within is what we think. Moreover, our within is our real world. Therefore, we must invest in thought.

Many times, before doing a mitzva, we need to make a blessing. One reason for such a blessing is to attach our thoughts to our deeds -- to direct our action in a more real and important way. Likewise, in all spheres of life, we should attach our thoughts to our deeds. We should make our thoughts our kings, and our deeds our servants.

We want to change our lives. We can change our lives. How? With powerful, directed thought.

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Steering Wheel, Accelerator

We need to remember -- as much as we can -- that heavenly help is available to us. This enhances our ability to use it. How should we look at this heavenly help? Where may we find it?

Heavenly help is the vehicle the Creator places at our disposal. It's the Creator's gift to us, His blessing. However, we need to drive it, to ride it. We need to control its main instruments -- the steering wheel and accelerator -- our desire and ambition.

Then, this marvelous vehicle has other instruments we need to use. One is gratitude -- thankfulness, appreciation for the Creator's gift of life. Another is joy -- as a team of horses senses the moods of its driver, so heavenly help senses our moods. The more alive we are with the joy of being alive, the more alive it is in carrying us quickly to our destinations.

Finally, we need to trust in this help. We must let go and let the help, help -- give ourselves over, surrender ourselves -- and let heavenly help carry us to our every dream.

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Meditate

As you sit at home, don't just sit within the four walls of your room -- sit instead amongst beautiful fields, surround yourself with sunlit forests, deep lakes, tall mountains, fruits and flowers.

As you move from place to place, don't allow yourself to be ordinary. Feel instead, that you are dressed in exquisite clothes, rich jewels -- red carpets roll out before you, orchestras play, and the crowds applaud your steps and cover you with flowers.

As you sit to read or study, don't sit alone. Feel yourself surrounded by hundreds of students, eager to hear your explanations, enjoy your insights, laugh at your jokes. Teach them and elevate them to new planes of existence.

In all that you do, feel the heavens invigorating you, helping you, blessing your activities -- until they are heaven's own.

Be a great person. Be a great person now. Smile. Be happy. Succeed.

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Energy-Agent

Mostly, each of us has a body that we are free to use. We want to move our heads -- we do so. We want to wiggle our toes -- we do so. We want to stand, walk, run -- we do so. What makes this all possible? -- The blood that runs through our veins.

Likewise, an energy-agent provides us with all the accomplishments, the pleasures we reach, we achieve -- an energy-agent gives us all that we have. What is this agent? It is heavenly help -- in Aramaic, siyata d'shemaya.

We need to know though, that as some people train their bodies to higher levels of ability, so we may use this heavenly help with greater or lesser skill.

A dancer teaches his body to move into difficult positions with ease and grace. A musician coaches her ear to hear a false note. A scientist prepares his mind to explore, methodically, possibilities and combinations of possibilities. Similarly, we must learn to use the heavenly help we receive with precision and polish to arrive at every type of success.

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Now

Your "now" is you. Your "now" is your life. The big question is can you enjoy it?

In other words, in addition to cleaning, repairing and building, in addition to sitting in dentist chairs and grinning, you need to be happy, now. This need not take away from your being a lawyer, a house mom, a financial analyst, a storeowner. You can go on building shopping malls, writing books, earning degrees, eating pizza. But you must also love your "now". For, the Creator has given you a gift -- the most Powerful, Wealthy, Intelligent force of all has handpicked a prize for you. To look down on it, reject it, is a terrible mistake -- one of the worst you can make.

On the other hand, to embrace your "now", love it, praise and thank the Creator for it, is the best investment you will ever make. It pays a thousand percent return. It brings you close to the Emperor of All and sits you on a glistening throne. It allows you to be the most powerful, popular, wealthy, intelligent person who ever lived.

So say thank you, smile and be happy, now!

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Thank-you, thank-you

Try this mantra during your day, "Thank-you, thank-you, please, please".

As you say thank you, think of all the wonderful elements of your life for which you are grateful. As your say please, think of all you still would like. The Creator is as close to us as we are to Him (Tehillim 145.18).

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Digesting

The best motorcar is one that produces the most power, while burning the least fuel. It's the same for us...

We eat and drink for energy. However, the food itself is not energy. Our digestive system needs to convert our food into power. Ideally, we should burn all the food we consume -- producing maximum energy and minimal waste. In this way, our bodies glow with health, fitness and beauty. However, when our system doesn't work as it could -- we eat a lot, put on weight, spend much time in the bathroom, and have little strength. This leaves us weak and flabby. We need therefore, to doctor our bodies that they may serve us properly.

This idea applies not only to eating, but to every aspect of living.

We take much from our world -- goods and services, homes and holidays. Also, we enjoy many life experiences -- at work, at study, even at play.

The question is then: How much of what we take do we convert into something useful, inspiring, and how much do we waste? How much of what we consume enriches our world, and how much simply dies?

Therefore, we need to adapt, to improvise. We need to think originally. We must want to help others. We must want to create what is more beautiful, more pleasurable. We must make ourselves a "digestive system" that will help us become people who are not only healthy, fit and beautiful -- but also, great.

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Kapara

Your favorite lamp broke? You drove your car into a lamppost? The heating system stopped working? Your boss chewed you out? Call it a kapara -- an atonement for one of your wrongs, a carelessness you showed towards the Creator -- and have a great day.

Have a great day. Have a great day. Have a great day. Have a great day.

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Don't Compete

Don't compete - others are you, your team. In the larger sense, everything around you is you, the larger you. Those who are more than you are; those who are less; even those who, superficially, stand at your life-station -- all are a part of the greater you.

See their genius, anything they produce, any way they enhance the world, as something you started -- a wish you expressed, a hope you nurtured -- that this world should be a better place.

Likewise, see their act of spoiling, destroying, as being something you began. Some laziness, some sadness soured your face, robbed you of the gleam in your eye and the brightness of your smile, and this brought the pollution, the devastation around you.

The whole creation is in your hands. Take it. Make it into something beautiful, something you and others will enjoy. Be a happy and positive, singing and dancing world.

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It Depends on Us

It depends on us -- us and only us. We are the ones who can change anything, who can improve the world around us. We may need the Creator's help to accomplish anything, but His help is here. We must simply ask for it.

It depends on us. We have to make it happen. The Creator will help us, but we must make the first move, we must take the first step. It cannot be another way. We have to look for it to happen. We have to ask for it to happen. Then it can happen.

We need to move first. We must make one move, then another, then another. This is sometimes the hardest part -- the resistance that faces us before we take that move. But if we'll ignore our reluctance, if we'll take the initiative, the resistance will fade from before us.

We can make it happen -- now. All we need is to do it -- now!

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Soaring

We need to be careful not to attach our thoughts to material objects. Our fascination with them prevents us from soaring to higher planes of consciousness, in this world, and the next (heard from Rav Amatzya Yakovzon, shlita).

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Good Story

The body of every good story is the courage and determination that the hero displays in the face of difficulty and challenge. This then should be the focus of our lives, to meet our life situation with greatness.

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Results

Whatever has happened until now doesn't really matter. Whatever will yet happen in the future also doesn't matter. Only one thing counts: what we say, do and think now.

Our yesterday is a background against which we conduct ourselves today. This background consists of successes and failures, excitements and disappointments. All this the Creator creates as our springboard -- a springboard to launch us towards happiness and success. Specifically, the past we lived through and experienced, is what allows our accomplishment and achievement to be the greater. Thus, there's no reason to worry over it.

The future is also something that shouldn't trouble us. What we do now decides what we deserve to receive -- and what we deserve to receive, we will receive. Good, powerful acts lead to good, powerful results. Poor, weak acts lead to poor, weak results. We simply need to DO the best we can right now, BE the best we can right now -- and KNOW that this will lead to our ultimate satisfaction.

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Excited

Here is advice worth repeating to ourselves:

One: be happy, excited, enthusiastic about all you do. Do it with a smile, a giggle, a laugh. Do it as a super-fun, new, interesting activity. Be captivated, fascinated. Let your eyes glitter. Rub your hands. Laugh again, just for fun. This is it -- a long-awaited treat, a slot machine pouring out glittering gold, a supersonic ride on a cloud, stars shining bright on white snow, a slide down a rainbow. This attitude has to affect others, and it has to affect you -- for your success, for your joy.

Two: be especially happy, excited, enthusiastic when you do a holy duty. When you stand up to pray, to praise, thank, plead with the Creator; when you help another, giving your time and money to enrich someone else; when you sit in a class, in front of a Torah text to learn, absorb, internalize the Creator's word, do it with a smile, a giggle, a laugh. Do it as though it was super-fun, new, interesting. Be captivated, fascinated. Let your eyes glitter. Rub your hands. Laugh again. This is it -- a long awaited treat, a slot machine pouring out heavenly gold, a supersonic ride through the solar system, sun shining bright on white wool, a shower of heaven's blessings. This attitude has to affect others, and it has to affect you -- for your future, and for your present.

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Love Life

How ready are you to give away a year of your life, or even month? How about a week, a day? How about 10 minutes?

Unless we know of some magnificent, vital cause, we won't give away even five seconds of the life the Creator gives us. Isn't it a puzzle then, how we allow days, weeks, months and even years to slip by, while we continue simply to exist -- to survive as unfulfilled, empty beings?

Passive, tired, unenthusiastic living is a form of death. How much of our precious time do we lose to such an approach, to such an attitude? We need, instead, to gallop through our days like horses of fire. Our hearts need to burn with passion -- a passion for life. To think actively -- to speak with purpose -- to move positively towards shining goals -- this is life.

To love life is to love the Creator. To love life is to live as the Creator wishes us to live. To love life -- every second of it -- is to fulfill ourselves -- and to win.

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