Going Against My Grain - Rabbi Yirmiyahu Cohen

Nobody likes to be told what to do. Don't tell me what to do. Naturally, we are built that when somebody tells us what to do, we don't want to do it. Here in Israel, for example, I have grandkids, baruch Hashem, and when I ask them to do something that they don't want to do, before they even word Abba or Imma, before they know the words Abba or Imma, they shrug. Like, I don't want to do this. I'm not doing this. Lo ratzeh. Like, where did I get this from? Nobody told them how to shrug. Yet a child, as soon as he knows what an instruction is, he will shrug and say no. I don't want to go to the bath. I don't want to eat. I don't want to sleep. I don't want to WAKE UP. I DON'T WANT TO GET DRESSED. Because when you tell somebody something, they will automatically mitznaged, automatically go oppose it, defiant. So now, if I go ahead and I go against my grain and do what Hashem told me to do, or what my parents or what my wife tells me to do, I'm going against my grain. I'm doing what they're saying, but it's great. Do you know why? Not because I'm getting more reward. That's also true. It's because I'm working on myself. I'm becoming a better person. When I'm thinking about other people, I'm not doing just what I want.