Day 24: Compassionate Endurance

Today is Day 24 of the Omer, which is three weeks and four days of the omer. . . Ha-yom arba'ah v'esrim yom she-hem shloshah shvuot u'shloshah yamim la-omer. 

THE OMER INTERSECTION: Nitzach + Tiferet - Enduring with Compassion

I loved what the Spiritual Guide to the Omer has to say about today: "The compassion of endurance reflects a most beautiful quality of endurance: an enduring commitment to help another grow. Endurance without compassion is misguided and selfish." What a great insight!  It is true that often, when we face challenges, we become very selfish.  Sometimes, it takes all of our brainpower, willpower, and power-power (strength) to endure in our quests.  The easy route is to focus back on my own needs to find a way through the challenge.  Afterall, The famous Rabbi Hillel (not the college campus organization) asked, "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" (Pirke Avot 1:14). When we experience those bumps in the road, we are our own best advocates.  If we aren't willing to commit to getting through the challenge in order to keep on going, who will do that for us?  Usually no one.  Endurance requires a bit of this self-focus.

Ah, but that's where the compassion comes in - Hillel's next question states: "If I am only for myself, what am I?"  Our endurance can cause us to look so fully inwards that we fail to reach that sense of chesed with which we started our journeys.  Often such tunnel-vision takes us away from the person we are trying to become through our endurance. 

THE OMER CHALLENGE:

To avoid falling into the trap of being overly self-consumed, let us embrace the challenge that our intersection calls for and show compassion for someone who we tend to view as an obstacle or hurdle to our personal goals.  Whether it is a boss or a friend or an acquaintance, a co-worker, or the driver in the next lane, when we start to feel that someone else is infringing on our abilities to move towards our goals, when we get into the mindset that we just have to endure this person standing in front of us, let us take a moment to remember that the other person is a human being, as well, with their own hopes and dreams and needs.  (Sorry for the INCREDIBLY long sentence).  Let us be that much more conscious of how we are treating them, even if the favor is not returned.  In that way, we can remain the person we hope to be and not let the other dictate our behavior.  If we're able to do so, our compassion just might actually help us to endure in our lifelong quests to be the best "us"es we can be.

THE OMER REFLECTION:

So, as a re-commitment to this blogging, I took to heart some of my own advice and analyzed whether or not some of my "habits" were actually preventing me from enduring with discipline.  And I came to a few conclusions:

1) I have to manage my time better where possible so as not to allow this post to happen only in the middle of the night.  I am bound to have a middle-of-the night blogging episode here and there, but I can't make it as consistent as it was.

2) Even though today's entry is in my original structure, I need to let go a little bit of the need to have three distinct sections.  So, be prepared, we might not have this same format every post.  And that should be a good thing!

3) I am finding that even when I don't think I have a lot to say about a value intersection, I do.  So, I'll need to fight my verboseness (verbocity?), and focus a little more. This should help with the amount of momentum I have to overcome in order to start a post.  Once I'm writing, it's wonderful.  Oh, Newton and your laws of momentum - why does the fact that bodies at rest tend to stay at rest have to apply to the process of writing, as well?!

All in all, it's good to be back!
Shabbat Shalom tomorrow!