Are Humble People Happy?

We discussed last time we're on page kuf tes zayin. Middle of learning about anavah. We discussed last time that when a person is when a person realizes that he has a talent or an ability or a maila or a mida tova that others don't have he should look at it like he's one of the misharshim. He's one of the officers in the staff of a palace and he's not just doing he if it's his job to open the door it's not just his job to open the door for himself. It's his job to each person participates in the running of the whole bias. So the baker doesn't just bake for himself. You know, the the the butler doesn't just open the door for himself. So similarly, the one that has chachma doesn't keep it to himself he teaches it to other people. A person that has different midas and different mailas, someone who Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave him the bracha that he's wealthy so he shares that wealth with others. He doesn't just look at it as "Hashem sent it to me." So vihinei, the second paragraph on page kuf tes zayin. Vihinei zehu iyun v'haisbonenus. This is the thought haroy l'chol ish asher sichla yashar that's roy It talks pretty strongly here. That's roy for any man whose intellect is straight. Any man who thinks straight. V'lo yimus akashan is not crooked, is not twisted. If a person thinks clearly he recognizes this. Uk'she yisborer zeh etzlo, when this becomes completely clear to a person that the mailos that I have are God-given mailos and they're not about me, I should just appreciate that Hashem gave them to me az yikarei anav amiti, then he'll be called a true anav sheb'libo u'v'fi carried by who olive that in his heart and inside of himself he's an olive. What's the difference between olive oil and the carrier by? Olive oil means in his heart. The carrier by means inside of him. So the carrier by I think means in his body. Like the carrier by is like a stomach. I think it means the carrier by you look right at him. I think it means that you could know something in your heart but not in your body. You know, like um You know, like a lot of times our immune and we talk and it's like that. You know, that we know that our lives are completely in the hands of a sham. You know, that at any moment a sham could just we could cease to be alive. It happens sometimes. And yet, when things happen we don't we get nervous anyway. Right? No, we we do get nervous sometimes. You know, getting a job. You know, if a person loses his job or is trying to take an interview for a job. These kind of things people get nervous about these things. What are you nervous about? The same one that's pumping air into your lungs right now is going to get you the right job. Like what what's what's the problem? Okay, some And there's nobody there's nobody in our world that doubts that that's the case. It's just that the lay feeling it and the body feeling it are not always the same. So that's what I think he means that it's something that has to um it has to penetrate the lay by all the carrier by. The hook in the Indian dove each other and he called this is like dove who said to me how about show. The highest he shuffle the Indian eye. I will be low in my eyes. In other words, David said I do not think highly of myself. What what should a person like what motivates you to get up in the morning if you don't think highly of yourself? You've been wondering that. Yeah, right. What motivates you to get up in the morning in the summer? What motivates you to put yourself forward? Yeah. That's a good point. What's there? We're making a huge mistake in our understanding of how to live life. And still she shall do you realize I want to point that point this out to you. I was learning with the Buddha last night. We we were having I know from this hour. Still she shall miss this whole paragraph of being humble, right? Basically the entire paragraph is focused on don't think you're anything special. Okay? And not once does he say and if that makes you unhappy like as if if you sat down and said my sugar high and what side of Please tell me how I'm supposed to smile after I read that paragraph I know that you basically told me that I'm not a shred of anything to be proud of. Like you it's not even a cash it to him. You think he walked around like depressed? Doesn't seem that way. If you read the safer you could cry from how exuberant he is. But he didn't believe that he had any miles at all. You think he wasn't an honor? I think we can assume he was an honor, right? So that means that he didn't think that he had any miles at all. Anything that he had was given to him by Hashem. He has nothing to show for himself. Feels good? And he didn't even Yeah, it's like nowadays in today in 2026, you'll be like, "Well, what should we do? It's going to hurt our self-esteem, right?" That's He doesn't have that issue. You know why? Because he knew the right way that we're supposed to think about ourselves. We live in a world where we are always measuring. How did I do with this? How did I do with that? Where am I up to? Where am I up to? What's my status with my friends? What's my status with my family? What's my status in school? What's my status in the base managers? What's my status with Hashem? What does Hashem think of me? What do you think of me? What do you think of me? What do they think of me? What do I think of me? But we're always measuring. We're giving ourselves scores. Ramchal would hear you talk that way, he'd be like, "I don't see what you're doing." You don't walk around feeling good about yourself because of what you did. You walk around feeling good about yourself because of who you are. You are a son of Hakadosh Baruchu. Banim Atem Hashem Elokeichem. You are connected to the creator of the world who loves you and gives you bracha and wants you to be happy. Yeah, that's a reason to be happy. You are blessed with many mailers from Hashem, presents from Hashem. He gave you certain mailers. That's a reason to be happy. Yeah, but last night I forgot to daven maariv. Okay. I'm not saying amazing. Wow, you forgot to daven maariv? That's awesome. If you did forget to daven maariv, don't forget to say sfira. But But But the point is that we we spend our whole lives on this roller coaster of measuring ourselves. If we didn't do an aveira in the last 6 hours, you know, and we showed up to what we were supposed to, we give ourselves a check. We did an aveira, we show up to our goals with X. >> Stop. We're trying hard. We have to grow. It's true that when we do well, good things happen. When we don't do well, good things hesitate perhaps from happening. But that's not the measure of who and what I am. Too often a guy misses davening and instead of thinking about the how to have a good day despite that and how to fix that for tomorrow, he gets lost in the mud of how he feels about himself for missing davening. That was not a conversation that the Ramchal had with himself. He missed davening. He was like, "Okay, I missed davening. Do I want to miss davening? I do not. I I know that I get tremendous tremendously closer to Hashem and my tefilos answered when I show up to davening. So I don't want that for myself. What should I do about it? Well, maybe I'm going to try this or that. I'll I'll make sure my screens are off like midnight tonight. Okay, good plan. On with the day. You had an issue. You made a plan. You move on. What if you have an issue that you don't have a plan for? I find myself doing the wrong thing. Find myself missing this or doing this aveira or this time and time again. I can't control myself. Okay, so now I have a long-term plan. I have to work on this long-term. But I'm a guy I'm still a guy that Hashem Hashem chose. I'm still a son to Hashem. Hashem. I'm still a tremendous tremendous person with a neshama that's larger than I can imagine. That's who I am. And I have an issue I have to deal with. I'm under construction. But this idea that we have that we spend our lives giving ourselves You guys are concerned if you're going to get an A or a B or a C in in any given class? I don't care about that. I care that before you go to sleep at night, you mark yourself with an A, B, or C. That's the part that's not good. So, Shimon is thinking, "Wait a second, you should never check yourself? Right? You should never measure? You should never You should never know where you're up to?" Yeah, of course you have to do that. But, you have to stop tying it so so tightly with your identity. You're a good guy that's doing the best that you can in a world of people that that um most of the world is unaware of Hashem. He has a few elite people that are focused on him. You are one of them, and you're trying to do the right thing. That's awesome. Oh, then I'm not going to work on anything. I give up. Then I'm good. What do I have to do? Then I'm going to put up my feet. No, I don't want that for myself. And I have a responsibility. And I recognize that I have a responsibility. And I'm motivated not by guilt, not because I'm giving myself X's. I'm motivated by the fact that first of all, I want what God has to offer. And second of all, I recognize that I carry responsibilities. And I'm a man, and I step up to my responsibilities. But, not because if I don't do that I hate when people say this. I Someone told me recently, "I go to shul because if I don't go, I'm going to feel guilty." I almost feel feel like telling the person not to go. It's an unhealthy relationship with the Yiddish God. So, the Ram Chal writes, "You should not give yourself credit for anything." You know why he could write that? Cuz he has a healthy relationship with his Yiddish God. It's despite everything, even if he has no mylas, he knows he's unbelievably loved by Hashem. And that everything that he does is important. Okay, then he could be an anav. In fact, anivus gives a person simcha. A person that's wrapped up in their ego and how everyone's treating them lives a miserable life. If you know people like that, you know they're miserable. They're miserable. They're getting politeness because their stomachs are so stressed and they're they're getting migraines cuz they're so wrapped up in their negativity. I'm like That's not life. So that's very important to notice what's missing in this perek. As we go through the perek, notice how much is missing. It's like this gap. There's this vacuum that Ramchal does not talk about "Oh, really? If I'm nothing, so why should I live?" He doesn't have that kasha. Isn't that amazing? Cuz it's He's not crazy like we are. We're crazy. You know these like magazine articles sometimes? I'm sure they have this online also where they'll like rate people. You know, sometimes even with a thumbs up, thumbs down. You know what I mean? They'll be like like sports players or entertainers or actors or politicians. They'll be like "Give these thumbs up, these thumbs down." You know, like This is our world. We're rating everything. Polls, you know, the president's popularity. If it could even go any lower, went even lower. You know? We're rating. We're rating. We're measuring. Right? You have to stop measuring so much. To stop How many times You do it. Don't I'm talking to you. I'm talking to me also. You give yourself checks. X's, right? People get totally lost in themselves. How am I doing? Where am I up to? You see that you see that he doesn't do that. The Arm is a great in the brachas. Chazal say "Kama gedolim me moiche haruah." Such an Such an ironic phrase. How How great how huge humble people are. People that make themselves small are huge. When the base of migdish was standing a person brings a carbon oil up there and he has the sky of bringing a carbon oil up he brings a carbon mincha he has the sky of bringing a carbon mincha but someone whose dies is is low, someone who's who's who's not walking around with his head in the clouds thinking like he's the best God's gift to humanity the Torah considers him as if he brought all the carbonites as the passage says in to him all the carbonites are Hashem is a broken ruach broken doesn't mean shattered broken means that you don't consider yourself whole, you consider yourself that you're dependent on others. You have things that I need, I have things that you need and we both have things that we need from Hashem. That's the shivara. A raise of shavash on the ruach that's the praise of the of humble people shame and over them believe them and my shavta that they are humble in their hearts and in their thoughts. Why is a humble person like someone who brings all the carbonites? It's just like you think Hashem just like randomly chose like what would be a good thing? Um yeah, I guess bringing all the carbonites would be a good thing. Okay, someone who's humble is like they brought all the carbonites. Why? Maybe someone that's humble is like he fasted on Yom Kippur. Someone that's humble is like he learned the whole Shul was night. I I don't know. Why do you pick this? I think this gets back to what we talked about a number of while ago. The real idea of anavah is that I don't live my life that it's about me. I'm not just here to service myself. I'm here to serve. A humble person, his whole focus is not on himself. This even gets back to the conversation that we just had. When we spend our day checking and exing ourselves, this this not just a a religious thing, by the way. When you go to the upstairs to the dining room and you sit down with the guys and you schmooze and you eat supper, most people don't know this, but I know what goes on in your mind. When you get up after schmoozing with the guys, you rate the conversation. Did you say anything funny? Are you connected with the guys? Do you have any friends? Do they care about what you think? Okay? You, you know, not everyone, but many people, they're rating. Check, check, X, X, X, check. When a person does that, the p'shat is that they're focused on themselves. Someone sits down to a conversation and his conversation is focused on, "What can I do to make this guy smile? How can I be there for this guy? How can I serve this guy?" When he gets up, he's not measuring himself. It's not about him. He's here to give. He's here to share. It's a different focus. And I know Shmaya, cuz I know how your mind works. You're thinking, "Yeah, he's measuring if he did that well." But even that's not true. No, because he does the best he can. He's here to serve. He puts himself out there and then he goes on to do the next thing. Took me years after speaking to not rate the speech to myself. Okay? I spoke on Shabbos. It was a good speech, I thought. And um get back to my seat, start mussar. I used to have this issue that during mussar, I'm like, was pretty good. Wasn't so good. I wonder if this guy liked it. It's a natural thing, you know, you speak in public, you want to make sure that >> I want to rate it to be a positive if it helps you do it better the next time. >> It depends how you rate. There's a There's a There's a rating where like my identity depends on it. And then there's a less uh there's a more objective rating that like, okay, this is my project, this is my business. In any business, you sit down with your project managers and say, "Okay, how can we do the business better?" But it's not like if we're doing bad, we're bad. If we're doing well, then we're then then we're we're amazing, you know? And the roller coaster is amazing because, you know, how many guys in the first few days of this month are convinced that they're both Rebbe Chaim and Rebbe Baruch Meir wrapped up in one cuz they had an amazing first 3 days of this month. That's also That's also the same thing. When you Everything is based on your performance, you you don't have an objective view of yourself. The objective view is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us koachas, we try to use them to the best of our ability. Now, you're right, in my process of using it, I may sit down and say, "Okay, how can I do better? I noticed that I enjoy learning bekius more than learning be'er. Maybe I'll focus more on that." And so I'll strategize just like I would if I if I owned a business. All right, let's stop here.