Sal's Reflections

In the musical” Les Miserables” it is said that to kow love is to see the face of God.The core of this staement is found in the Jewish proverb”to know love is to touch eternity.”You are blessed if you know and share the experience of love. If there is a dearth of love in your life it is worthwhile to remind yourself that your humanity alone earns the gift that touches all of the wonder of life.Love is the greatest gift that creates the legacy that makes our lives live without end.To love and be loved are the reflections of all that is spiritual and good.Despite the past,if it is filled with the absence of love,the search for this treasure is always worthwhile.

On this second day of Hanukkah I have found great meaning in a proverb taught to me by my mentor years ago.”If you have a “why” ,you will always find a “how.I have found constant energy and inspiration from these words. Often when I focused on the “why” there was no immediate path to achievement but almost without exception the “how” surfaced. An example of this was my desire to write a novel about the Holocaust.The why was centered on many factors that had been taught to me by my friend and teacher Viktor Frankl.The development of why something has value enables us to muster the will and resources that lead to the goals that make life fulfilling.Searching for the value of that which we desire often promotes the necessary behavior that makes the issues more than a passing fancy.

Although I am not Jewish I have always been impressed with the wisdom and humanity of the Jewish philosophy of life. In the next nine days I would like to pose some Jewish proverbs that enable and enlighten the human spirit. The first is: “Improve yourself before you begin to judge others. “It is relatively easy to win the game of comparisons without having to look at yourself. The wisdom of this proverb is that in the search for personal development it has been my experience that I become more tolerant and understanding of others. None of us are finished products and there is always opportunities to grow in wisdom and love. Today I will reflect on personal opportunities for growth and attempt to halter my tongue and negative judgment of others.

The greatest gifts in life are to love and be loved. If this treasure has been experienced by you then you are truly blessed. Knowing that someone cares for you adds a dimension of meaning that elevates every human experience. Not everyone has experienced the wondrous feelings that accompany love so it behooves us in this season of gifts to be eternally thankful if we are loved, and to do all in our power to convey to others that we love the joy that they bring to us. In addition there may be small opportunities to show our love and concern for those who have never experienced the wonder of care that we have known. Reaching out will only make what you have more special.

How many times have you worried about things that never happened? Or if they happened were they as bad as you envisioned? Worrying is part of life but some have made a full time job of it .I am not telling you that you should never worry, but if it is pervasive than it might be time to structure it. I have found that the best time for me to engage in the worry fantasies is when I go to bed. I allow approximately all the cares to run feely through my mind for a few minutes and occasionally ask myself “what’s the worst thing than can happen”? This specific time period and concrete visual of what is haunting me I have found to be less daunting than my imagination run wild. Most of what we worry about either does not occur, or is some reality that we can meet head on. If the issue is totally out of our control we will cross that bridge when it actually occurs.

Jealousy can be an emotion that eats up psychic and emotional energy. There is always someone who is taller, smarter, richer or a host of other comparisons that we wish were ours. It often prevents us from seeing the gifts that we possess and minimizes the wondrous uniqueness of our own personal worth. Wanting to be something else is somewhat natural but if it stands in the way of creating a path that appreciates how singularly valuable every life is, then it needs to be minimized. In this season of gift giving one wrapped present that is within our reach is to confront the green eyed monster and shed the yoke of lusting after a path that leads to bitterness and self doubt. We all have worth that need not be compared to any other life.

For years as a consultant to the Pharmaceutical industry I observed that most initial drug trials fail.Almost always new compounds reveal side effects that were unknown until clinical trials revealed the difficulties. However,almost in every case there was new learning that led to successful development of future drugs. I believe the same could be said of most personal failures.We all fail at something but within those failures may be vital learning. Revisiting situations that were deemed failures provides the opportunities to learn and those points of wisdom may enable us to succeed in the future.Being immobilized by past failure can prevent insights that allow us to try and try again. Everyone fails but those who learn from failures are truly the wise ones.

It is often said that”we should be cradle to grave learners and I think all would agree that is a worthwhile pursuit.However, many of us are so busy that we rarely have the opportunity to continuously learn new and invigorating subjects. One way to continue the intellectual and emotional growth is to discover something new each day. It could be a recipe,or new vocabulary,a historical fact or and endless well of internet data. Every day there are little opportunities to fathom some small part of the fountain of knowledge at our fingertips. For years I approach each day with the commitment to discover something new or to rediscover something that I had lost along the way.I have found that this starts my day with an energy and pleasantly I know that like all the days before, i will discover something new today.

One of the finest persons I was privileged to know was Charlie Hudson. When asked what he wanted said about him when he died he answered “That I made a difference.” The greatest legacy of a life is to make a difference and every person has that opportunity. The needs of others are endless and each time we meet those needs we leave footprints in the sand. Charlie’s life was one of a thousand times a thousand where he gave of himself. It is the call of each of us in our desire for legacy to make the world better each day. The mammoth achievement that we desire is before us in tiny opportunities. It can be a smile, an act of charity a forgiving word or the willingness to stand for the rights of the marginalized. There is no act of kindness that does not spawn other acts of kindness.

I saw a marvelous version of the play by Edward Albee this week. The pain and anguish of the dysfunctional relationships in the play were difficult to watch. The characters caught in the web of their own human failings lash out to inflict harm on each other. They care about each other but their own frailties prevent the development of healthy relationships. In these situations in the real world people who witness this kind of struggle are often wounded their whole lives ,and have difficulty creating healthy patterns of love and caring. No one is raised in a perfect environment, but I have been blessed to experience models of caring where the ultimate goal is the welfare of others as well as myself. Without any sense of superiority it behooves those of us who have been spared the pain of participating in such dysfunction to reach out to someone caught in the throes of such difficulty.