Surely at some point in your life you have dreamt about what your ideal life would look like. You have imagined, most likely in very fine detail, the place you want to live, the job you would like to have, perhaps even the person you want to be with. In all likelihood you have spent hours of your life contemplating this perfect scenario, only to awaken to the reality that you are currently in. Why do we dream so much? Why do we wonder what could be? I believe that for many of us, it is the world that we want, but have convinced ourselves that it can not be. For a plethora of reasons, many of which we can rattle off without having to think about it, we have given up on any hope of ever achieving even a fraction of these goals. Although this list of reasons might be quite long, there is truly only one reason that we have not realized any of these dreams. The truth is that we have not done what it takes to achieve the desired results. “How could I ever have a successful business?” “How could I ever become an accomplished writer?” “How could I become an accomplished Torah scholar? I am who I am, and that’s just the way it is.” We have accepted these thoughts as truth, when really they are lies that we have been told and we have grown up to believe.
The Sages of the Talmud have told us “Every person is required to say ‘for my sake the world was created’,” (Sanhedrin 37a). We have all heard this phrase, yet we live our lives as if the opposite were true. This world was created for you yet you don’t live in a way that reflects this statement. If I am put on this planet with one life to live, and this entire world was created for me, then what is it that I am supposed to accomplish in my time here? Could it be that the entire world was created for me to do a bunch of nothing and believe that I am nothing? This huge world with all of its resources and vast territories, with its great mountains and its deep blue ocean, with many types of life, large and small, was all created for me, yet I tell myself “That’s just the way it is.” We believe that there are special people on this earth, but we can’t possibly be among those people who accomplish great things. I am just a regular person.
The truth is that you are far from regular. You are astonishingly unique, with talents and abilities that no other living person possesses or has ever possessed. For each of us there is a challenge. The challenge is to find out how to utilize these unique gifts we have been given. Before we can begin to find out what it is we are to do and how it is that we are supposed to do it, we must believe that indeed we are special and can accomplish that which no one else can. Not only can we achieve it, but we MUST achieve it. For this the entire world was created. You must believe in you, just as I believe in you. I believe that it is impossible that Hashem, in all of His supreme wisdom, created the world for everyone else, and somehow you managed to slip through. This world was created for you and it is yours for the taking. If you have no idea what it is that you are to accomplish, think back to that ideal world that you have pondered for so many years. Let’s start with that. As we map out a journey to reach that destination, I am sure that you will learn a lot about who you are and what you really want. Today is Day 1 of the life you always wanted to live. Are you ready?