How Will You Use Your Challenges? | Rabbi Joey Haber

I'd like to give you the key, what makes life from miserable to happy. One key. It says that Man was created, אדם מן האדמה. The word אדמה means ‘the ground’. Why is Hashem emphasizing that we’re from the ground? That word ‘the ground’ could have two very different meanings. אֲדָמָה, the ground, as a place where you plant a seed and it grows. If that's how you're living your life, like from the אֲדָמָה, like you’re here to grow, then life is a journey. This is my opportunity to do today what I couldn't do yesterday or couldn't do the day before, which makes every single day a journey that's exciting. But if instead I take those same letters and instead of reading it אֲדָמָה, I read it אֲדַמֶּה, I compare to, if that's how you're living your life, then you're miserable. If you're comparing to things, then you’re for sure frustrated. So if instead you see something insufficient inside of you and you say, I'm going to get better, I'm going to grow, then that life is an incredible experience. But instead, you see something insufficient, and אֲדַמֶּה, you start looking elsewhere to see what you could compare to and what someone else has and what looks better and what's more impressive and what you're tempted by, that life is frustrating and miserable. So it's one shift. It's the same letters. אֲדָמָה is ground to grow from. אֲדַמֶּה is comparing to become frustrated with. It's up to you how you want to live your life. Everybody has a life with challenges. Some people use their challenges to grow, some people use their challenges to compare to everybody else and make themselves miserable. Which one you’d like to be is pretty much up to you.