Turn your inspiration into REAL change

We need not wishes, we need resolutions. What's the difference? A wish is a dream. It's a hope. But we want some genie to provide or produce it for us. We have no plan. We have no resolution. We have no formula. When we're driving our lives instead of being driven by them, that we're not a so we're not an object being acted on. We are a subject. We are the actors who are determining our lives. When we act like an object, a passive object, it's just the way it is, then we're destined to fall. We're destined to fail. Like gravity, the way gravity impacts an object. If we live our life as a gravity will impact us. So many of us this time of year, we deliver a lot of lip service. We get ready. We say certain felos. We attend certain shim. We have in mind or intention change, grow, but they're wishes. They're simply wishes. We really want to wish to wake up one morning and be a better version of myself. I wish I wish I were more patient. I wish I were more generous. I wish I wish I knew more. I wish I connected more to I wish I were a better husband and wife. I wish I were a better mother or father. I wish I were a better hashem. We confuse and we mistakenly think that we're prepared, that we're working, that we have plans when really all that we have are wishes. of Colamus K Shapiro the Petsba we quoted him this morning in his kodesh his wonderful sermons that he delivered in the wars ghetto on the I want to quote him tonight in his spiritual diary he wrote a spiritual diary you'll say what's a spiritual diary a spiritual diary does not write it's what I had for breakfast this was lunch look at a picture of my dessert this one was nice to me this one was mean to me this is what we did today that's a diary a spiritual diary are here are my hopes and aspirations. Here are my dreams. Here are my talents. Here are my strengths. And here are my struggles. So he writes visual diary and I'll read it to you in the English. If you want to know if you progressed on your spiritual path over the years, the way to judge is to look at your resolution at your inner drive and not at your wishes. Only the inner drive with which you work to attain your desired goal is called resolution. But if you don't work rather just want it's not called resolution it's just some wish that you wish for yourself to be blessed with that desired objective for example he writes he's writing in the early 20th century sazer was written before he was in the wars ghetto and murdered by the Nazis sham for example the popper who works to sustain himself this is drive because he's doing something constructive toward it but the wish that he'll find a million dollars is just a wish to be rich, not a resolution. Every Jew would like to be at Saddak, but that's no more than a wish. He'd like to wake up in the morning and suddenly find himself at Saddak. Only the level and state of being that you seriously work toward can truly be called a resolution. When I first read this, and I've shared it before, it had an enormous impact on me because it's sobering. It demands of us to be honest with ourselves. Do we have wishes or resolutions? I have a wish. I have a wish to be more patient, to be more present. I have a wish to be healthier and exercising more. I have a wish to be more connected to to my D. They're wishes. I want to wake up tomorrow morning and some genie will grant me my wish and it will come true. But those are just wishes. Wishes are not reality. And wishes are not a resolution. Says the holy pett. We need not wishes, we need resolutions. What's the difference? A wish is a dream. It's a hope. But we want some genie to provide or produce it for us. We have no plan. We have no resolution. We have no formula. We have no calendar. We have no system in place. It's a wish. I wish I would wake up and be more fill in the blank. But those wishes, despite what the world tells us, most often do not come true. And they won't come true if they remain only in the realm of wishes. They need to be transformed from wishes into resolutions. A resolution. A resolution. That's the real secret to change says the petta to be honest with ourselves and to distinguish what are my wishes but what am I willing and ready to make a resolution about. There are countless things that we claim to want to change about ourselves. But the measure or the evidence of whether we really want it or not is is it just a wish or are we ready to make a resolution? Do we have a plan? Are we going to bring it into reality? Because frankly, we're in control. We think we're not. We forfeit our control, but our DNA is not our destiny. Just because of where we come from doesn't mean that determines where we're going. because of the circumstances and environment and people around us. It's just excuses to say that we can't take control. We can if we're determined and if we make resolutions, if we have a plan, we put a place, we have parameters, and we're ready and we're willing to execute, we can turn those wishes into into resolutions. I want to share with you a beautiful Torah from says that human beings have the potential to be either objects or subjects. So Josh gave in 1974 he applied what a well-known brisker lumbus a brisker a brisker way of analyzing a Jewish law for example he was talking about the two components of the mitzvah of chauffeur is the mitzvah for the chauffeur to be blown is it azah the object or is it a mitzvah to blow the chauffeur is it a is it in the in the individual do we focus on the mitzvah. Do we define the mitzvah by the the object or by the gra by the person? And he elaborates in two approaches with anamina. What's the practical difference? A beautiful incredible analysis of the mitzvah of chauffeur of the mitzvah to blow the chauffeur. But that's not what I want to focus on or elaborate on right now. I want to share with you his application of this analysis to the mitzvah of chauffeur and gavra. A classic, maybe the most classic brisker lumbness and analysis, not only on a mitzvah, but on us on us. We, every one of us in our lives have the opportunity and the potential, the choice. Do you want to be a or are you willing? Are you ready to be a gavra? When our lives are on autopilot, we're a product of our surroundings. When momentum is just carrying us that we're coasting through life. When days blend into weeks, into months, into years, and we look back and realize we've simply been living the same year over and over and over again, then we're we're just an object being acted upon. But when we're mindful, when we're spiritually awake and conscious and conscientious, when we're driving our lives instead of being driven by them, then we're not. So we're not an object being acted on. We are a subject. We are the actors who are determining our lives. How do we prioritize and spend our time? How do we prioritize and spend our resources? Can we regulate our emotions and our reactions? Are we, as we've shared so many times and it's not ours, many people say this idea, are we a thermostat or a thermometer? A thermometer takes your temperature. A thermometer, a thermometer reports on what it is. A thermostat controls the temperature. Many of us think I'm a thermometer. I tell you, I'm angry, jealous, I'm happy, I'm so satisfied, sad. We we report on our temperature. We report on our emotion as if we're just a thermometer. I can tell you how I feel. I tell you my emotion, but I have not no control over it. But that's not accurate. It's not who we are. That's not how it has to be. You're not just a thermometer. Don't just report to others what's happening. So, our comedian had a whole routine on the definition of marriage. Marriage is the privilege of waking up next to somebody who every day will give you a full report on how they slept the night before. That's marriage. Many times they woke up, they fell in a deep sleep, they didn't. They fell asleep, but they woke up. They couldn't fall asleep. How long they slept? That is marriage. The definition of marriage. A ther a thermometer. A thermometer. I have a report. I want to tell you how my stomach is. I want to tell you how well I slept. I want to tell you how I'm feeling. I want to tell you what's going on. I'm going to tell you emotionally, spiritually. This is where I'm at. I'm a thermometer. But we don't have to be, and we shouldn't be. We can be a thermostat. We could be a thermostat. We can control our temperature. We don't have to indulge the emotion, the feeling of anger or of envy. We should never swell with arrogance. We don't have to be impatient and lose our cool. We have the capacity to not just have wishes to be different, but to make resolutions. We have the opportunity, says to not just be a don't just be an object, but be a gavra. It's time to step up and be a gavra. But the difference between an object and a subject, a and a gavra, is the admission and the willingness to accept the responsibility that I am in control. That I'm not just going to have wishes and dreams to wake up different one day, but I have a resolution and a plan. I have a resolution and a plan to incorporate more learning in my life. I have a resolution and a plan to spend more time with my family. I have a resolution and a plan from dis to disconnect from technology and be more present with the people around me. I have a resolution and I have a plan and I'm going to be able to measure. I'll be able to report. They're going to be outcomes. One of my favorite quotes, Peter Ducker, what gets measured gets managed. Wishes don't get measured because it's just a wish is a genie in a bottle and I hope and I wish I'll wake up tomorrow morning. I'll be thin. Hair will grow back on my head. I'll be patient. I'll be this. I'll be that. There's your wishes and wishes don't come true. Wishes don't come true. You have to make a resolution. You have to go from an object being acted upon to a subject who's an actor in our own lives, from a thermometer to a thermostat. It's not a coincidence thereof that when the Jewish people fail, when we make mistakes, when we come up short, for example, the shimon and many others, the Torah uses a verb over and over and over again. And the verb the Torah uses is falling. A urida. A urida. And Shimshon went down. And went down. Theel we had aida. We went down. Why? When the Torah sees us as making a mistake, as coming up short, as having poor judgment, why is it described as as falling of salv? Because an object falls. An object is impacted by gravity. An object descends. It crashes and it burns. It fails. When we allow our lives to be objects, when we're passive spectators, couldn't help it. Wasn't my fault. It's my nature. I have my instinct. I have my DNA of those who came before. That's just the way we are. We're always late or we're always angry. We have rage. We have anger issue. That's the way we're jealous. That's who we are. That's what I am. What can I do? When we act like an object, a passive object, it's just the way it is, then we're destined to fall. We're destined to fail like gravity. The way gravity impacts an object. If we live our life as a gravity will impact us, the great GBA was once asked why do we live in a world why did Hashem create gravity and nim there's a correlary for everything in the physical world for the spiritual world. So what's the spiritual correlary for gravity? Why did Hashem create gravity? I should be able to take this toy that my parents got me. I should let go of it where I'm holding it and should stay where it is. Why does it fall? Why when I move my hands does it drop? What is the message? What is the lesson of gravity? Without hesitating, the said because we need to know that just like in the physical world, there's a gravitational pull. It's always working and acting upon everything. And unless you resist it, unless you fight it, unless you're lifting to go against it, you're going to fall. That's gravity. Gravity is a pull. It's lowering us and you have to fight it and you have to resist it in order to offset it. What's true physically is true spiritually. There is no neutral. There is no parv. You can't simply coast through life. If you're coasting through life, if you're living off of wishes instead of resolutions, if you see yourself as a spectator and a passive object instead of a subject, gravity will pull you down. like theel Shimon, the Moragon, and countless others, we will fall. If you see yourself as an object, gravity will pull you down. The Torah tells us we have the opportunity to not just be an object. Don't give in. Don't concede. Don't forfeit. Just like you don't have to let gravity pull things down, we have the strength and we have the capacity. When we have the will and when we have the resolve, we can fight gravity, we can ascend, we can lift, we can go up. And it's not a coincidence that the Torah and Kazal, whenever they talk about chuva, they talk about change and repair and improvement and transformation. It is always used in the language of ascending. It's always with going up. Ben aliyah, to be a benali, to be going up. Why do we describe improving or growing or redeeming or repairing? Why is that going up? Because you know what goes up? Subject can lift up. An object. Gravity pulls down. And that's our choice. That's our choice this year. Every year. But this time of year, we're looking in the mirror and asking ourselves, am I a subject or an object? Am I just a being acted upon? What can I do? It's my spouse. It's my children. It's my boss. It's my rabbi. It's my neighbor. It's the person that's next to me in shu. That's why I am the way I am. I'm just an object acted upon by everyone else. If that's the case, we're going to fall. We're going to fall fast. We're going to fall hard. But we have the opportunity to be a subject, to lift, to lift up, to fight that gravitational pull, to resist gravity, and to do chuva lash lash. Chuva is the answer. We can be the answer and we can return to who we're meant to be.